The ___________ class is responsible for managing database connections efficiently.

The SqlConnection class in ADO.NET is responsible for managing database connections efficiently. It represents a connection to a SQL Server database and provides methods for opening, closing, and managing transactions on the connection. SqlConnection is essential for establishing a connection to a database server and executing commands against it. It also handles connection pooling internally, which helps in optimizing connection usage and improving performance by reusing existing connections instead of creating new ones for each database operation. Understanding how to effectively work with SqlConnection is fundamental for building scalable and efficient database-driven applications in .NET.