Custom Data Providers
A custom data provider, in the context of ADO.NET and the .NET Framework, is a suite of classes that provide programmatic access to some data source using a set of consistent interfaces. The data source can be anything you like. There are custom providers for flat-file databases that have no corresponding ODBC driver, providers for Reflection, and even a provider for MSMQ (Microsoft Message Queuing) data communication.
The point is that, whatever the data source, the interface and API to gain access to that data is consistent between your provider, Microsoft's providers, and any other implemented providers. The next section gives you guidelines to determine when you should create a custom provider, how you should create ...
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