Data Access Model

Topic Last Modified: 2008-08-05

This topic provides information about how the different technologies compare with regard to the data access model.

Technology What style is used to access the data?

Active Directory Services Interfaces (ADSI)

This information is not yet available here.

Collaboration Data Objects for Windows 2000 (CDOSYS)

CDOSYS presents collections of messages and body parts as ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO) row sets, and represents individual messages as a collection of body part objects.

CDOSYS SMTP/NNTP Event Sinks

When the event sinks are fired, they receive the message being processed inside a CDO.Message object. The message parts are represented as a hierarchy of objects with methods and properties.

Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange 2000 Server (CDOEX)

Collections of some object types can be accessed as ADO row sets by means of the Data Source object. The individual rows represent other CDOEX objects.

Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange Management (CDOEXM)

Mixed. Collections of some object types can be accessed as ADO rowsets by means of the DataSource object. The individual rows represent other CDOEXM objects.

Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange Workflow (CDOWF)

Mixed. Collections of some object types can be accessed as ADO rowsets by means of the DataSource object. Other CDOWF items are presented as hierarchical objects.

Exchange OLE DB Provider (ExOLEDB)

ExOLEDB provides a pure database-style model.

Exchange Store Event Sinks

None. Note, however, that the Exchange store events act as part of the "transactions" that occur as items are stored, modified, and deleted within the Exchange store.

Exchange Web Forms

The objects that are available through the Exchange Web form object model form a hierarchical set of objects and collections.

Exchange Web Services

Exchange Web Services return information in SOAP XML messages that contain the item data, properties, and error information.

HTTP/Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)

WebDAV returns information in text and XML streams that contain the item data, properties, and error information. Additional information is available in the method response headers.

WebDAV Notifications

WebDAV returns information in text and XML streams that contain the item data, properties, and error information. Additional information is available in the method response headers.

Incremental Change Synchronization (ICS)

The information that represents changes made to the Exchange store is provided in an IStream.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

Not applicable.

Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)

MAPI represents messages and users in hierarchical object fashion.

Outlook Object Model (OOM)

OOM represents all data as a hierarchical set of objects and collections.

Outlook Web Access

Microsoft® Outlook® Web Access returns data in various forms, including HTML and XML, depending on the capabilities of the client browser.

Exchange Rules

Exchange rules present data to applications as a set of hierarchical objects with methods and properties.

SMTP Event Sinks

The message data is presented to the sink as a MailMsg COM object.

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) providers for Exchange

Mixed. Instances of Exchange provider objects are represented as hierarchical lists of objects that have properties and methods. In addition, instances can be selected by means of the WMI Query Language (WQL), which is similar to SQL in structure.

Exchange Backup and Restore API

Applications that use this API iteratively read and write the Exchange store data in fixed-length in-memory buffers.

Exchange writer for the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service

Access to data inside a VSS shadow copy depends on the hardware vendor's implementation. Do not use Exchange to directly access the storage group data inside the shadow copy. The data must be restored to its original location before Exchange can mount the storage group.