In summary, this chapter describes the core of ADO.NET. Having focused on the disconnected dataset, ADO.NET enables us not only to build high-performance, scalable solutions for e-commerce, but also allows the applications to reach other platforms through the use of XML. This chapter serves as a high-level survey into the classes that make up ADO.NET and serves to familiarize you with the System.Xml library.

In the next chapter, we delve into building software as services. We will make use of ADO.NET as the data-access and exchange mechanism in our software services.