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Choose a task and continue in Microsoft Learn. The ADO.NET driver documentation hub covers the full learning path. These links take you to driver-specific explanations, prerequisites, and walkthroughs rather than standalone repository samples.

I want to...	Microsoft Learn guide	Watch for
Configure a secure connection	Connection strings and encryption and certificate validation	Match the endpoint's capabilities and certificate identity; do not bypass trust validation.
Connect using Microsoft Entra ID	Microsoft Entra authentication	Choose a flow suitable for the host and review the 7.x Azure extension requirements.
Pass values safely	Commands and parameters	Parameters represent values, not arbitrary table names or SQL syntax. Match types and sizes to the schema.
Avoid blocking during I/O	Use the task-based async APIs and propagate cancellation. Async guidance	Do not share an active command/reader concurrently or block on async work unnecessarily.
Read a large binary/text value	SqlClient streaming support	Sequential access constrains access order; avoid materializing the entire value by accident.
Load many rows	Bulk copy operations	Decide column mappings, batching, transactions, identity handling, and failure recovery deliberately.
Group writes atomically	Transactions and concurrency	Assign the transaction to participating commands. API availability does not imply genuinely asynchronous implementation.
Handle transient failures	Configurable retry logic and high availability	Retry only operations whose effects are safe to repeat; avoid stacked retry policies.
Protect sensitive columns	SqlClient support for Always Encrypted	TLS protects transport; Always Encrypted has separate keys, permissions, and deployment requirements.
Use JSON or vector columns	JSON data and vector data	Confirm server capability and driver version; planned vector subtypes are not shipped features.

Connections and performance

Follow connection pooling guidance and use diagnostic counters to understand pool pressure. Keep connection lifetimes scoped to the work and release them promptly; increasing the maximum pool size is not a substitute for diagnosing leaked readers, long operations, or excessive concurrency.

Establish a representative baseline before changing packet size, retry behavior, MARS, or pooling switches. Change one factor at a time, using the same runtime, OS, network, and workload.

Apply the guidance to your environment

Check each article's driver, runtime, server, and platform requirements. Keep connection information outside application code, using the connection-information protection guidance. Adapt authentication, error handling, and cleanup to your application.

Next: Troubleshooting for a failing operation; Roadmap for capabilities not yet available.

Sources: the Microsoft Learn articles linked above.