OLE DB (''Object Linking and Embedding, Database'', sometimes written as OLEDB or OLE-DB), an API designed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

, allows accessing

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

from a variety of sources in a uniform manner. The API provides a set of interfaces implemented using the Component Object Model (COM); it is otherwise unrelated to OLE. Microsoft originally intended OLE DB as a higher-level replacement for, and successor to,

ODBC In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...

, extending its feature set to support a wider variety of non-

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relati ...

s, such as

object database An object database or object-oriented database is a database management system in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. Object databases are different from relational databases which a ...

s and

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ...

s that do not necessarily implement.

Methodology

OLE DB separates the data store from the application that needs access to it through a set of abstractions that include the datasource, session, command, and rowsets. This was done because different applications need access to different types and sources of data, and do not necessarily want to know how to access functionality with technology-specific methods. OLE DB is conceptually divided into ''

consumers A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. ...

'' and ''

providers Providers is a Danish hip hop, R&B and pop song production team made up of Jeppe Federspiel and Rasmus Stabell.Microsoft Data Access Components Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC; also known as Windows DAC) is a framework of interrelated Microsoft technologies that allows programmers a uniform and comprehensive way of developing applications that can access almost any data store. It ...

(MDAC).

Support status

Microsoft's release of

SQL Server 2012 The history of Microsoft SQL Server begins with the first Microsoft SQL Server database product – SQL Server v1.0, a 16-bit relational database for the OS/2 operating system, released in 1989. Versions Detailed history Genesis On June 12, 198 ...

(internal code: 'Denali') is the last to include an OLE DB provider for SQL Server, but support will continue for 7 years. According to a related Microsoft FAQ, "Providers like ADO.NET which can run on top of OLE DB will not support OLE DB once the latter is

deprecated In several fields, especially computing, deprecation is the discouragement of use of some terminology, feature, design, or practice, typically because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient or safe, without completely removing ...

", but the same answer in the FAQ states that the original post relates only to the OLE DB provider for SQL Server, so the position of OLE DB itself remains unclear. The same FAQ states that ODBC performs better than OLE DB in most cases. However, during subsequent reviews it was determined that deprecation was a mistake because substantial scenarios within SQL Server still depend on OLE DB and changing those would break some existing customer scenarios. On Oct 6, 2017 Microsoft announced that OLE DB was undeprecated, and a new version to maintain dependencies would be released in early 2018.Microsoft SQLNCli team blog: Announcing the new release of OLE DB Driver for SQL Server
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OLE DB providers

An OLE DB provider is a software component that enables an OLE DB consumer to interact with a data source. OLE DB providers are analogous to

ODBC driver In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. A ...

JDBC driver A JDBC driver is a software component enabling a Java application to interact with a database. JDBC drivers are analogous to ODBC drivers, ADO.NET data providers, and OLE DB providers. To connect with individual databases, JDBC (the Java Databas ...

s, and ADO.NET data providers. OLE DB providers can be created to access such simple data stores as a text file and spreadsheet, through to such complex databases as

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word ...

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ...

Sybase ASE SAP ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise), originally known as Sybase SQL Server, and also commonly known as Sybase DB or Sybase ASE, is a relational model database server developed by Sybase Corporation, which later became part of SAP AG. ASE was ...

, and many others. It can also provide access to hierarchical data stores such as email systems. However, because different data store technologies can have different capabilities, every OLE DB provider cannot implement every possible interface available in the OLE DB standard. The capabilities that are available are implemented through the use of COM objects; an OLE DB provider will map the data store technologies functionality to a particular COM interface. Microsoft describes the availability of an interface as "provider-specific," as it may not be applicable depending on the data store technology involved. Providers may augment the capabilities of a data store; these capabilities are known as ''services'' in Microsoft parlance.

References

* {{Microsoft APIs Database APIs Microsoft application programming interfaces SQL data access