A part of MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components), it provides a middleware layer between programming languages and OLE DB (a means of accessing data stores, whether databases or not, in a uniform manner).
No knowledge of SQL is required to access a database when using ADO, although one can use ADO to execute SQL commands directly (with the disadvantage of introducing a dependency upon the type of database used).
Some basic steps are required in order to be able to access and manipulate data using ADO : Here is an ASP example using ADO to select the "Name" field, from a table called "Phonebook", where a "PhoneNumber" was equal to "555-5555".
This is equivalent to the following ASP code, which uses plain SQL instead of the functionality of the Recordset object: ADO is supported in any development language that supports binding to binary COM interfaces.
These languages include ASP, Delphi, PowerBuilder, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).