JDBC allows Java programs to connect to databases in a standard way. It provides cross-vendor connectivity and data access across relational databases. The key classes and interfaces in JDBC establish database connections, send SQL statements, and process query results. To use JDBC, a program first loads the appropriate driver, gets a connection, creates statements to execute queries and updates, processes the results, and closes the connection. This allows Java applications to access databases in a uniform manner independent of the underlying database.