A binary standard that enables objects to interact with other objects, regardless of the programming language that each object was written in.

A consumer is any application or tool that calls to a data source or the interfaces of provider to access data. See provider.

The Oracle client/server communication software that offers transparent operation to Oracle tools or databases over any type of network protocol and operating system.

Procedural language extension to SQL provided by Oracle .

A provider is an interface or set of components that provides data to a consumer. As the term is used with Oracle Provider for OLE DB, a data provider is a set of COM components that transfer data from a data source to a consumer, by placing the data in a tabular format when called for. See consumer.

A stored procedure is a PL/SQL block that are stored in an Oracle Database and can be called by name from an application.