DAO, or Data Access Objects, is a Microsoft technology that enables you to use a programming language to access and manipulate data stored in both local and remote databases. Data Access Objects (DAO) lets you access and manage databases, along with their structure and objects, by providing a framework called an «object model» that uses code to create and manipulate different kinds of databases.

DAO supports two different interfaces, which are known as workspaces:

• The ODBCDirect workspace, in which you can access database servers such as Microsoft SQL Server through open database connectivity (ODBC). This workspace lets you execute queries or stored procedures against a database server, perform batch updates, and execute asynchronous queries. ODBCDirect makes it possible for you to take advantage of Remote Data Objects (RDO) technology in your DAO code.
• The Microsoft Jet workspace, in which you can access databases based on Jet technology or on installable indexed sequential access method (ISAM) data sources in other formats such as Paradox, dBase, and Btrieve. You use this workspace to access a single database, such as a .mdb database from Microsoft Access, or to join together data originating from several different database formats.

DAO and RDO are both available now, but these technologies are being superseded by Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) and Remote Data Service (RDS). All these components can be found in the Microsoft Data Access Software Development Kit.