In this book, readers will learn to: * Understand the basics of ADO.NET, the data architecture for the .NET platform. * Work with both connected and disconnected data. * Build a custom data provider and leverage XML in applications. * Code custom stored procedures and call them from .NET. * Work with diverse types of databases including SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL from .NET. * Use databinding on both Windows desktop and ASP.NET Web applications for easy and seamless data manipulation. * Architect and code cutting-edge Web services.