Alternatives

Strengths and weaknesses of the various database interfaces

Interface	ADO.NET	ADO	DAO	RDO	OLE DB	ODBC	MFC ODBC
Object Model		++	+	+	+	-	+
Non-relational data sources		+	-	-	+	-	-
Low-level control			-	-	+	+
Performance			-		++	+
Code-to-functionality ratio		+	+		-	-

A big difference (or advantage) of ADO over DAO and RDO is that it does not keep collections of recordsets, queries or connections therefore requires less resources.

RDO - Remote Data Objects

RDO was originally developed as an abstraction of the ODBC API for Visual Basic programmers.
Therefore, RDO is closely tied to ODBC and Visual Basic.

Public dbRDOConnect as ADODB.connection 
Public dbRDORecordset as ADODB.recordset 
Dim sConnectionStr as string 
Dim sSQLQuery as string 

SConnectionStr  = "DSN =" & DatabaseName & ";" 
                              "UID = " & UserId & ";" 
                              "PWD =" & Password &  ";" 

Set dbRDOConnect as New RDOconnection 

With dbRDOConnect 
      .Cursordriver = rdUseODDC 
       .Connect = sConnectionStr 
       .EstablishConnection rddrivernoprompt 

End With 

Set sSQLQuery = "" 
DbRDOrecordset.Open = dbRDOConnect.OpenRecordset(

OLE DB - Object Linking and Embedding DataBase

OLE DB could be classified as a low-level database API.
OLE DB incorporates the functionality of ODBC for relational databases and expands on it by providing access to nonrelational data sources.
OLE DB is great for C++ programmers since it requires manipulation of interface pointers

ODBC - Open DataBase Connectivity

ODBC provides a single API for client applications to work with different databases.
Applications that use the ODBC API can communicate with any relational database for which there is an ODBC driver.
Compared to other database interfaces, the ODBC API could be classified as a low-level database interface.
The ODBC API enables client applications to configure and control the database at a relatively low level.