MDAC Technology Features

This article describes many of the useful features available in the Microsoft® Data Access Components (MDAC) SDK, focusing on what you, the developer, can accomplish with them.

The following topics are included:

Managing Data describes how you can access data where it's stored and achieve data source neutrality.
Developer Advantages covers extensibility, scalability, optimizations, ease of use, and asynchronous support features. Many of these features are especially relevant to ADO users.
Service Providers describes features available in the Service Component Manager, Data Shaping Service, Cursor Service, Synchronization Service, Remoting Provider, and Persistence Provider.
XML briefly describes how XML can be used to stream and persist rowsets.
Other Features contains information about session pooling, automatic transaction enlistment, the connection information user interface, data conversion, and support for Microsoft Visual Studio® Analyzer.

For information about Microsoft's Universal Data Access (UDA) strategy and each of the MDAC technologies, see "What Are the MDAC Technologies?."

For information about the relative advantages of UDA and MDAC, see "Choosing MDAC Components."

For information about the history of MDAC redistribution, including detailed information to help you work with several versions of these technologies, see "MDAC Distribution, Past and Present."