iAnywhere.com - SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider features

The SQL Anywhere documentation describes the API for the SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider for ADO.NET 2.0.

If you are developing an application with ADO.NET 1.x, refer to the API reference for the SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider at [external link] http://www.ianywhere.com/downloads/products/sqlanywhere/sql_10_dotnet_api_reference.pdf.

SQL Anywhere supports Microsoft's .NET Framework 1.x and 2.0 through three distinct namespaces.

iAnywhere.Data.SQLAnywhere The ADO.NET object model is an all-purpose data access model. ADO.NET components were designed to factor data access from data manipulation. There are two central components of ADO.NET that accomplish this: the DataSet, and the .NET Framework data provider, which is a set of components including the Connection, Command, DataReader, and DataAdapter objects. SQL Anywhere includes a .NET Framework Data Provider that communicates directly with a SQL Anywhere database server without adding the overhead of OLE DB or ODBC. The SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider is represented in the .NET namespace as iAnywhere.Data.SQLAnywhere.

The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework is the smart device development framework for Microsoft .NET. The SQL Anywhere .NET Compact Framework Data Provider supports devices running Windows CE.

The SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider namespace is described in this document.
System.Data.Oledb This namespace supports OLE DB data sources. This namespace is an intrinsic part of the Microsoft .NET Framework. You can use System.Data.Oledb together with the SQL Anywhere OLE DB provider, SAOLEDB, to access SQL Anywhere databases.
System.Data.Odbc This namespace supports ODBC data sources. This namespace is an intrinsic part of the Microsoft .NET Framework. You can use System.Data.Odbc together with the SQL Anywhere ODBC driver to access SQL Anywhere databases.

On Windows CE, only the SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider is supported.

There are some key benefits to using the SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider:

In the .NET environment, the SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider provides native access to a SQL Anywhere database. Unlike the other supported providers, it communicates directly with a SQL Anywhere server and does not require bridge technology.
As a result, the SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider is faster than the OLE DB and ODBC Data Providers. It is the recommended Data Provider for accessing SQL Anywhere databases.