Thank you for your help Sanjay but surely that is why there is a Name attribute. So that the various SqlDataproviders do not share a name (or namespace) since they are different instances of the same object.

My original concern is still the same. This worked in DNN4 and it was logical (different name hence different instance) and it doesn't work in DNN5. I think DNN5 has broken this functionality and it shouldn't have since the way DNN4 did it is completely consistent with other providers and a logical hierarchy of objects.

Just by way of illustration here is how the Navigation providers look (in part)...

        <add name="DNNMenuNavigationProvider" type="DotNetNuke.NavigationControl.DNNMenuNavigationProvider, DotNetNuke.DNNMenuNavigationProvider" providerPath="~\Providers\NavigationProviders\DNNMenuNavigationProvider\" />
        <add name="DNNTreeNavigationProvider" type="DotNetNuke.NavigationControl.DNNTreeNavigationProvider, DotNetNuke.DNNTreeNavigationProvider" providerPath="~\Providers\NavigationProviders\DNNTreeNavigationProvider\" />

Two instances of the same DNN object with different names and that is how DNN4 handled it (down to module level as you could get access to the alternately named Data Provider in your module). I haven't even begun to find out if the module level code still works because I cannot even fire up my website.