3 Advanced Features This chapter describes advanced features of the data providers. You can use these features whether you are using the standard ADO.NET data provider or the ADO.NET Entity Framework data provider. These features can also be used with applications that use the Data Access Application Blocks. This chapter includes the following sections: ■ “Using Connection Pooling” ■ “Using Statement Caching” ■ “Using Connection Failover” ■ “Client Load Balancing” ■ “Using Connection Retry” ■ “Using Security” ■ “Storing and Returning Client Information for Connections” ■ “Using DataDirect Bulk Load” ■ “Using Diagnostic Features”