ADO.NET is a set of libraries included with the .NET Framework that help communicate with various data stores from .NET applications. The ADO.NET libraries include classes for connecting to a data source, submitting queries, and processing results. ADO.NET also allows for disconnected data access using objects like the DataSet which allows data to be cached and edited offline. The core ADO.NET objects include connections, commands, data readers, data adapters and data sets which provide functionality similar to but also improvements over ADO.