Microsoft ADO.NET is the latest data access technology from Microsoft. ADO.NET is a collection of classes that are part of the .NET Framework, and is designed to provide consistent access to data in loosely coupled n-tier application architectures such as web services. ADO.NET can be used to access a variety of data sources including databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and Microsoft Access, as well as XML, OLE DB, and ODBC data sources.