ODBC

Short for Open DataBase Connectivity, a standard database access technology developed by Microsoft Corporation. The purpose of ODBC is to allow accessing any DBMS (DataBase Management System) from any application (as long as the application and the database are ODBC compliant), regardless of which DBMS is managing the data. ODBC achieves this by using a middle layer, called a database driver, between an application and the DBMS. The purpose of this layer is to transform the application's data queries into commands that the DBMS understands. As we said earlier, both the application and the DBMS must be ODBC compliant meaning, the application must be capable of sending ODBC commands and the DBMS must be capable of responding back to them.