Overview of Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET)

Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET) is an implementation of a data provider for the Oracle database.

ODP.NET uses Oracle native APIs to offer fast and reliable access to Oracle data and features from any .NET application. ODP.NET also uses and inherits classes and interfaces available in the Microsoft .NET Framework Class Library.

For programmers using Oracle Provider for OLE DB, ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) provides an automation layer that exposes an easy programming model. ADO.NET provides a similar programming model, but without the automation layer, for better performance. More importantly, the ADO.NET model allows native providers such as ODP.NET to expose Oracle-specific features and datatypes.