Here we are getting a table of data, a fairly common thing to do in using VB.NET, note here that you will want to make a function called getSQLConnection to get and open a vaild connection to your database.
For your connection string, if you are in a web environment, you might want to get from the web.config of your site. Like so :
ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("NameOfConnectionString")
Here is a get data table function that you might want to use, note the using blocks which help with GC should the statment fail.
Public Function GetDataTable(ByVal StoredProcName As String, ByVal StoredProcPrams As SqlParameter()) As System.Data.DataTable Try Dim returnDT as New DataTable Using SQLConnection = getSQLConnection() ' call a function to get your connection string and open it. Using command = New SqlCommand command.Connection = SQLConnection command.CommandType = Data.CommandType.StoredProcedure command.CommandText = StoredProcName If Not (StoredProcPrams Is Nothing) Then For Each Parameter As SqlParameter In StoredProcPrams command.Parameters.Add(Parameter) Next End If Using DataAdapter As New SqlDataAdapter(command) DataAdapter.Fill(returnDT) Return returnDT End Using End Using End Using Catch ex As Exception Throw New ApplicationException("Error in GetDataTable (" & StoredProcName & ") EX:" & ex.ToString) ' maybe some logging here End Try End Function