ODBC

A standard database access method developed by Microsoft. The goal of ODBC is to make it possible to access any data from any application, regardless of which database management system (DBMS) is handling the data.

ODBC manages this by inserting a middle layer (called a database driver) between an application and the DBMS. The purpose of this layer is to translate the application's data queries into commands that the DBMS understands. For this to work, both the application and the DBMS must be ODBC-compliant; that is, the application must be capable of issuing ODBC commands and the DBMS must be capable of responding to them. ODBC is language-independent.