The Microsoft .NET architecture is the programming model for the .NET platform. The .NET Framework provides a managed execution environment, simplified development and deployment and integration with a wide variety of programming languages.
The .NET Framework has two key parts:
The .NET Framework class library is a comprehensive, object-oriented collection of reusable types that you can use to develop applications. The .NET Framework class library includes ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and Windows Forms.
The common language runtime (CLR) is the core runtime engine for executing applications in the .NET Framework. You can think of the CLR as a safe area - a "sandbox" - inside of which your .NET code runs. Code that runs in the CLR is called managed code. It is fully protected from the outside environment and highly optimized within, taking advantage of the services that the CLR provides such as security, performance, deployment facilities, and memory management, including garbage collection.
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What is ADO.NET?
ADO.NET is the data access component for the .NET Framework.
ADO.NET leverages the power of XML to provide disconnected access to data. ADO.NET is made of a set of classes that are used for connecting to a database, providing access to relational data, XML, and application data, and retrieving results. ADO.NET data providers contain classes that represent the provider's Connection, Command, DataAdapter and DataReader objects (among others).
The following figure shows how ADO.NET fits into the communication between a Web client and the DBMS.
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Shashi Ray