Provider model

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The provider model is a design pattern formulated by Microsoft for use in the ASP.NET Starter Kits and formalized in .NET version 2.0. It is used to allow an application to choose from one of multiple implementations in the application configuration, for example, to provide access to different data stores to retrieve login information, or to use different storage methodologies such as a database, binary to disk, XML, etc.

Providers are a subclass of the ProviderBase class and typically instantiated using a factory method.