Visual C++ provides several ways to work with databases. You can directly call database API functions from the DAO or ODBC Software Development Kits (SDKs), or you can choose to use the Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC), and let the MFC DAO and ODBC classes simplify working with either database API. New features in this release of Visual C++ include support for ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) 2.0, Microsoft's new, high-level interface to all kinds of data; integration with the Microsoft Visual Data Tools; and OLE DB templates to simplify programming with OLE DB.