Today, a vast amount of critical information necessary to conduct day-to-day business is found outside of traditional, corporate production databases. Instead, this information is found in file systems, indexed-sequential files such as Btrieve, personal databases such as Microsoft® Access and Paradox, and productivity tools such as spreadsheets, project management planners, and electronic mail. To take advantage of the benefits of database technology, such as declarative queries, transactions, and security, businesses must move the data from its original containing system into a database management system (DBMS).
This process is expensive and redundant. Furthermore, businesses need applications to exploit the advantages of database technology not just when accessing data within a DBMS, but also when accessing data from any other information container.
OLE DB is a set of ActiveX® interfaces that provide applications with uniform access to data stored in diverse information sources. These interfaces support the amount of DBMS functionality appropriate to the data source, enabling it to share its data.