Installation and configuration takes only minutes, by following the documentation which remains available anytime, specifically for this driver on Windows.
Release 7.0 licenses are also available for immediate purchase.
Release 7.0 installers are available for immediate download for Windows. Builds for Mac, Linux, and other Unix-like OS will be available soon; please contact us if you have urgent need.
Release 7.0 supports all 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC client tools and applications, both GUI and command-line, on —
Windows and Windows Server on x86 and x86_64 |
---|
|
The Release 7.0 Lite Edition ODBC Driver supports virtually every version of Oracle in current use, including —
|
Support for Oracle 12c
Enhanced support for Oracle 11g
Installation and configuration takes only minutes, by following the documentation which remains available anytime, specifically for this driver on OS X and Windows.
Release 7.0 licenses are also available for immediate purchase.
Release 7.0 installers are available for immediate download for Mac and Windows. (Express Edition is not typically produced for Linux and other Unix-like OS will be available soon; please contact us if you have specific need.)
Release 7.0 supports all 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC client tools and applications, both GUI and command-line, on —
OS X and OS X Server on x86 and x86_64 |
Windows and Windows Server on x86 and x86_64 |
---|---|
|
|
The Release 7.0 Express Edition ODBC Driver supports virtually every version of Oracle in current use, including —
|
Support for Oracle 12c
Enhanced support for Oracle 11g
Today, we have the Lite Edition ODBC Drivers for Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server.
Installation and configuration takes only minutes, by following the documentation which remains available anytime, specifically for this driver on OS X and Windows.
Release 7.0 licenses are also available for immediate purchase.
Release 7.0 installers are available for immediate download for Mac and Windows. Builds for Linux and other Unix-like OS will be available soon; please contact us if you have urgent need.
Release 7.0 supports all 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC client tools and applications, both GUI and command-line, on —
OS X and OS X Server on x86 and x86_64 |
Windows and Windows Server on x86 and x86_64 |
---|---|
|
|
The Release 7.0 Lite Edition ODBC Driver supports virtually every version of Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase Adaptive Server in current use, including —
|
|
|
added support for SPARSE
columns in SQLColumns()
call
added DSN options
and Multi-Tier connect option -X
)
details, based on test table:
CREATE TABLE tbl_sparse_test ( col1 INT SPARSE , col2 INT , col3 XML COLUMN_SET FOR ALL_SPARSE_COLUMNS )
wildcard query will return only col2
and col3
; will not include SPARSE
columns. This is standard SQL Server behavior, and it cannot be changed.
SELECT * FROM tbl_sparse_test ;
To include SPARSE
columns in results, they must be explicitly SELECTed
SELECT col1, col2, col3 FROM tbl_sparse_test ;
By default, calls to SQLColumns()
don't return Sparse Columns. To receive full columns list:
via our Lite Edition ODBC driver —
open connection with SHOWSPARSECOLS
in DSN connection string, e.g.,
via the Microsoft ODBC driver —
added support for new SQL Server datatypes such as datetime2
added support for NBCROW
token
added support for Sybase 15
added support for BIGDATETIME
and BIGTIME
added support for UNITEXT
added support for UNSIGNED BIGINT
fixed issue with SQL Server BIT
datatype
fixed memory overwrite error, when DB procedure is called with
parameter of CHAR/VARCHAR/LONGVARCHAR
fixed issue with VARBINARY
datatype and DB procedures
fixed issue with converting TIMESTAMP
to CHAR/WCHAR
fixed datatype info in
-- new Sybase and MSSQL datatypes were added
fixed database catalog and query metadata info for Sybase 15's UNSIGNED INT, UNSIGNED SMALLINT, BIGINT, SYSNAME, LONGSYSNAME
It's the year 2015, and the fundamental issues associated with the utility of data access drivers remain confusing. Basically, we remain uncertain about the value-to-compensation alignment of ODBC (Open Database Connectivity), JDBC (Java Database Connectivity), and ADO.NET drivers/providers.
ODBC | JDBC |
---|---|
ADO.NET | |
After allowing for consumer irrationality [1], the basis of any payment is fundamentally tied to the monetization of opportunity costs. Essentially, we pay for one thing to alleviate the (usually higher) costs of something else.
The rest of this post focuses on highlighting the real pains associated with the $0.00 value misconception associated with Data Access Drivers: ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLE-DB, etc.
In the most basic sense, there are some fundamental aspects of data access that are complex to implement and rarely implemented (if at all) by free drivers. The list includes:
Beyond actual driver sophistication, in regards to key feature implementations, let's up the ante by veering into the area of data security. At the most basic level, It's extremely important to understand that all data access drivers provide read-write access to your databases; thus, it's imperative that data access drivers address the following:
Once you're done with security, you then have the thorny issue of data access and data flow management. In a nutshell, your driver needs to be able to handle:
Once you've dealt with Security and Data Flow, you then have to address the enforcement of these settings across a myriad of ODBC compliant host, which is where Zeroconfig and centralized data access administration comes into play i.e., configure once (locally) and enforce globally.
When OpenLink Software entered the ODBC Driver Market segment (circa 1992), the issues above were the fundamental basis of our Multi-Tier Drivers. Although the marketplace highlighted our drivers for high performance, stability, and specification adherence -- to all of which we remain committed -- our fundamental engineering focus has always been skewed towards configurable data security, platform independence, and scalability.
Every item of concern outlined in the section above is addressed by security features built into our Multi-Tier Drivers [2][3][4]. These features all leverage the fact that our multi-tier drivers include a sophisticated DB session rules book that enables construction and enforcement of user attribute (user name, application, client operating system, IP address, target database etc.) based rules which are applied to all database sessions (single or pooled).
Today, in the year 2015, the security issues that pervade Data Access, whether via Native SQL RDBMS Drivers, or ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET Drivers/Providers, have only increased, courtesy of ubiquitous computing -- facilitated by the Internet & Web, across desktop and mobile device dimensions. Paradoxically, there remains a fundamental illusion that all Data Access Drivers are made the same; i.e., they simply provide you with the ability to connect to SQL RDBMS back-ends, for the industry standard price of $0.00, without consequence -- thereby skewing the very nature of SQL RDBMS data access and its security and privacy implications.
I hope that this post brings some clarity to a very serious security and general configuration management issues associated with Data Access Drivers. Free ODBC Drivers offer nothing; that's why they cost $0.00. When dealing with real issues associated with Open Data Access, you must have a handle on the inevitable issues of data security and privacy.
When Sun originally released Java 1.0, there were no JDBC drivers -- there wasn't even a JDBC.
Data access came in Java 2.0, as JDBC 1.0, but there were very few JDBC drivers from any source, as would be expected with any new technology -- but the ODBC ecosystem (itself then at only v2.0) was going strong.
Sun recognized that Java wouldn't have as much uptake without a functional data access solution -- so they produced and bundled the original Type 1 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver, sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver
, but from the very beginning, they warned that users "should use the JDBC-ODBC Bridge only for experimental prototyping or when you have no other driver available."
That bundled JDBC-ODBC Bridge was (and always remained) single-threaded, and though it received some other updates along the way, it only ever supported a subset of JDBC 2.0 and later. Sun (and later Oracle) recommended that users employ "a pure Java JDBC technology-enabled driver, type 3 or 4, in order to get all of the benefits of the Java programming language and the JDBC API."
Even in the early days of JDBC, we saw that there would not always be an available JDBC driver for a given target data source -- but the numbers of ODBC drivers were rapidly increasing, supporting every major and many minor DBMS and other data sources. We saw a need for an enterprise-grade, non-experimental Bridge solution, with full support for the JDBC API.
We delivered this first as our Type 3 Multi-Tier solution, bridging from JDBC in one environment (typically a UNIX-like OS) to ODBC in another (most often, Microsoft Windows).
Type 3 Enterprise Edition (Multi-Tier) Architecture Diagram
(click to enlarge)
Type 1 Lite Edition (Single-Tier) Architecture Diagram
(click to enlarge)
Sun long warned that the JRE-bundled Bridge was transitional, and Oracle confirmed immediately upon acquisition that it would "be removed in JDK 8. In addition, Oracle does not support the JDBC-ODBC Bridge." Java 8 is now in full release, and indeed, the venerable sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver
is no longer present, as evidenced by the scary looking error --
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:372)
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:360)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:30
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:259)
Any Java users or applications relying on ODBC connections and also needing the security and other improvements found in Java 8 are left high and dry... Or would be, but for OpenLink Software.
Our JDBC-to-ODBC Bridge, in both Type 1 and Type 3 forms, has been available and regularly updated since its original release for JDBC 1. Fully multi-threaded since Java Runtime Environments (JREs) could handle such, we have also kept pace with the JDBC API -- now at JDBC 4.2, in 2015's Java 8 a/k/a JDK/JVM/JRE 1.8 -- and maintained compatibility with the also-evolving ODBC API, now at 3.8.
Especially important for the modern world, our solutions support both 64-bit and 32-bit environments, including both 64-bit JVMs and ODBC drivers, and our Type 3 solutions can even bridge between these, whether you have a 64-bit JVM and need to connect to a 32-bit ODBC driver, or you have a 32-bit JVM and need to connect to a 64-bit ODBC driver.
As always, our solutions are available for immediate download, with a free two-week trial license provided alongside. We encourage pre-purchase installation, configuration, and testing, with support provided through our web-based Support Forums and even free up-and-running Support Cases. Once you've confirmed the driver works for you, entry level and special offer licenses may be purchased online or through our Sales Team; these as well as custom license configurations or partnership (IBP, ISV, VAR, OEM, etc.) arrangements are always available by direct contact.
]]>This month's DataSpaces contains material of interest to the Virtuoso developer and UDA user community alike —
New ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, and OLE DB Drivers for Major Databases]]>
Burlington, MA. Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - OpenLink Software, Inc., technology leader in the development and deployment of secure,
high-performance universal data access middleware, announces the commercial availability of Release 6.1 of its high-performance and
secure Universal Data Access Drivers.
The updated components support new and older releases of Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, IBM DB2, IBM Informix, Ingres, Progress
Open Edge, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Firebird, across Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX.
New features across then entire suite include:
- XA-based two-phase commit across ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET
- Microsoft SQL Linked Server compatible ODBC provider for OLE DB (32 & 64 Bit)
- ODBC Bridge for JDBC accessible Databases (32 & 64 Bit)
- Ruby on Rails Adapter for ODBC- and JDBC-accessible databases
- Support for 64-bit Windows running on x86_64 (e.g., Opteron, Xeon) and IA64 (e.g., Itanium2) Processors across all Data Access APIs --
ODBC, JDBC, OLEDB, and ADO.NET
- Support in Mac OS X Universal binaries for PPC and Intel 32-bit mode on Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5), plus Intel 64-bit mode on Leopard
- ADO.NET 2.0 Support (and an ADO.NET 3.0 Beta Provider on request)
- ADO.NET integration with Visual Studio 2005
"The new product release builds on our legacy as leading provider of quality, secure and high-performance data access drivers to all major
DBMS engines," said Kingsley Idehen, President & CEO.
"We are at a critical juncture within the enterprise and across the Web, where data access, portability, and unobtrusive integration require
the technological prowess and leadership qualities we've consistently demonstrated over the last 15 years. Standardized data access
middleware that enables the development and deployment of database and operating system independent applications remains a critical priority
for organizations worldwide," he added.
About OpenLink Software
=======================
OpenLink Software is a privately held software company with offices in the U.S.A., United Kingdom, Russia, and Bulgaria. It has been the
leading provider and technology innovator in the universal data access middleware market since 1993, with over 10,000+ companies currently
using its products worldwide.
Additional information on OpenLink Software can be obtained from the web site: http://www.openlinksw.com/.
Contact:
Helen Heward-Mills,
OpenLink Software, Inc.
Tel: 781 273 0900
Email: hmills@openlinksw.com
OpenLink Software are pleased to announce release 1.1 of the ODBC Adapter for Ruby on Rails (ActiveRecord).
This unifies data-access from a plethora of individual adapters to one common configuration in Rails; rather than having a multitude of DBMS-specific Rails Adaptors with inconsistent functionality and behaviour, you can now focus on a single data adapter with consistent behaviour across ODBC-accessible databases on all Ruby-supported platforms. This release adds support for DB2, MySQL, Sybase and SQL Server. The supported DBMSes now include: Oracle, Informix, Ingres, OpenLink Virtuoso, SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL and DB2.
The adapter can be downloaded from rubyforge:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/odbc-rails/
Technorati Tags: odbc, rails, ruby, webdevelopment
]]>Why Web 2.0 clones are not innovative:
Richard MacManus at ZDNet writes his view on Web 2.0 clone applications. He observed that every country has its set of Web 2.0 clones — bookmarking sites that looks del.icio.us, photo sharing sites that like Flickr, social networking sites like MySpace, community news sites like digg, etc. He criticizes those Web 2.0 clones being non-innovative.
It’s true that most of the clone apps don’t come with innovative ideas, but it would be unwise to think that they totally have no values. Contrary to Richard’s point of view, I think clone apps are essential ingredients in helping the IT business in developing countries to become innovative.
Innovative ideas don’t usually born in the thin air. They requires extensive testings and experiments. The mature IT business in the US has extensive knowledge and experience in developing innovative ideas. People here have a general idea about what works and what doesn’t. In many developing countries, however, the settings are completely different.
Take China for an example. Its IT market is still in an infant stage comparing to that of the US. Chinese businesses that recently entered the market are still in the stage trying to figure out how to make profits and establish a sustainable business model. The need to be innovative now, perhaps, is not on the todo lists of the business executives.
Furthermore, the past generation of Chinese engineers and developers were not exactly trained to be innovative and think outside-the-box. They were trained with impressive memorization skills and obey orders from superiors. It’s unfair to expect this generation of Chinese IT workers to live and breath with innovations as their US counterparts do.
Given this type of harsh environment in many developing countries, it’s quite natural to act as copycats and repeat business ideas that have good track records. In fact, it’s a good business if being a copycat can bring profits.
We don’t criticize Yahoo! Maps being a copycat of Google Maps. We don’t criticize Google Notebook being a copycat of del.icio.us. Why should we criticize foreign Web 2.0 clones when their intention is to learn how to enter a global IT market and to become prosperous? Maybe in the cloning process, copycats will discover innovative ideas by accident.
]]>
What Problem Does Natural Language Search Solve?:
Matt Marshall recently posted a story about a new search engine looking to raise a lot of money at a very high valuation, which has created quite a bit of buzz as people argue over whether or not the company has a chance, or deserves such a high valuation. Matt followed up with more details on the company, though he still expresses some reasonable skepticism. Like many people, my first reaction on hearing about it was that I can't remember a year that's gone by without someone claiming to have come out with a revolution in natural language search. However, when it comes to search engine news, no one can go through the history and explain why something is a bad idea quite like Danny Sullivan can. He lists out all the attempts at natural language search, and shows how each one failed (in some cases, miserably). He also points out that the problem with natural language search is that it requires everyone to change their behavior. As with any startup, when you're looking at their chances, the big question to ask is pretty simple: what problem does it solve? Plenty of people have figured out how to search with keywords. In fact, many of us find it more natural and faster than trying to construct a natural language query. So, while all the natural language search engines that come along insist that searches suck because they can't understand the the searcher, it's not clear that's the real problem. When people want to use a search engine, they want to find what they want. That means being able to search quickly. Dumping two or three keywords into a box is always going to be a lot faster than figuring out the natural language equivalent. So, perhaps someone can enlighten us. What is the problem natural language search solves?
Technorati Tags: search
(via Techdirt)
Technorati Tags: natural-language, search
]]>Enjoy!
]]>The trouble with "Standards Appreciation" is that vendors see standards from the following perspectives primarily:
Korateng Ofusu-Amaah provides insightful perspective on the issues above, in a recent "must read" blog post about how this dysfunctionality plays out today in the realm of HTML Buttons and Forms. Here are some notebable excerpts:
"Instead my discourse devolved into a case of I told you so, a kind of Old Testament view of things instead of the softer New Age stylings that are in vogue these days. Sure there was a little concern for the users that had been hurt by lost data, but there was almost no empathy for the developers who had to lose their weekends furiously reworking their applications to do the right thing especially because it appeared that they would rather persist in trying to do the wrong thing.
The sentiment behind that mini tempest-in-a-teapot however was a recognition of the fact that those who have been quietly evangelizing the web style were talking about the wrong thing and to the wrong people."
..."..As application developers we should ask for better forms, we should be demanding of browser makers things like XForms or Web Forms 2.0 to make sure that we can go beyond the kind of stilted usability that we currently have. Our users would appreciate our efforts in that vein but for now, they know what to expect. Until then application developers should push back when we are told to "do the wrong thing".
There is an unfortunate mindset trend at the current time that espouses: "Sloppiness" is good, and "Simple" justifies inadequacy at all times. Today, the real focus of most development endeavours is popularity first and coherance (backward compatibility, standards compliance, security, scalability etc.) a distant second, if you can simply make things popular then that justifies the sloppiness (acquisition, VC money, Blogosphere Juice etc.). Especially as someone else will ultimately have to deal with the predictable ramifications of the sloppiness.
Standards are critical to the success of IT investment within any enterprise, but standards are difficult to design, write, implement, and then comprehend; due to the inherent requirement for abstraction - it's a top down, as opposed to bottom up, process.
Vendors will never genuinely embrace standards, until IT decision makers demand standards compliance of them, by demonstrating a penchant for smelling out "leaky abstractions" embedded within product implementations. Naturally, this requires a fundamental change of mindset for most decision makers. It means moving away from the "this analyst said...", "I heard that company X is going to deliver....", "I read that .....", "I saw that demo..." approach to product evaluation, to a more knowledgeable evaluation process that seeks out the What, Why, and How of any prospective IT solution.
Knowledge empowers all of the time. It's a gift that stands the test of time once you invest some time in its acquisition (unfortunately this gift isn't free!). Ignorance with all its superficial seduction (free and widely available!), is temporary bliss at best, and nothing but heartache over time.
]]>Here are a few links that resolve any confusion about this matter:
Or simple google on PHP and ODBC or PHP and iODBC ...
]]>This post is about highlighting the real pains associated with the $0.00 misconception associated with Data Access Drivers: ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLE-DB etc.
In the most basic sense, there are some fundament aspects of data access that are complex to implement and rarely implemented (if at all) by free drivers, the list includes:
Okay, so we're done with actual driver sophistication re. implementation of critical features. Let's Up the ante by veering into the area of security. At the most basic level, It's extremely important to understand that all data access driver types provide read-write access to your databases; thus, it's imperative that data access drivers address the following:
Once you're done with security, you then have the thorny issue of data access and data flow management. In a nutshell, your driver needs to be able to handle:
Once you've dealt with Security and Data Flow, you then have to address the enforcement of these settings across a myriad of ODBC compliant host, which is where Zeroconfig and centralized data access administration comes into play i.e., configure once (locally) and enforce globally.
When OpenLink Software entered the ODBC Driver Market segment in 1992, the issues above where the fundamental basis of our Multi-Tier Drivers. Thus, although we distinguished ourselves via performance, stability, and specification adherence, our fundamental engineering focus has always been skewed towards security and configurability, alongside high-performance and scalability.
As we close 2009, the security issues that pervade Native DBMS Drives, ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLE-DB etc. Drivers have only increased, courtesy of ubiquitous computing, sadly though, there remains a fundamental illusion that Data Access Drivers simply connect you to DBMS back-ends, and since you can get these drivers at $0.00 from most DBMS vendors they can't be that important.
I hope that this post brings some clarity to a very serious security and general configuration management issues associated with Data Access Drivers. Free ODBC Drivers offer nothing, when it comes to the real issues of Open Data Access. If they did, they wouldn't be worth $0.00!
Note: wondering if this has anything to do with Linked Data (my current data access focal point)? Well, remember, the Linked Data meme is fundamentally about REST based Open Data Access & Integration via HTTP; thus, what applies to Relational Model databases naturally applies to their more granular Graph Model relatives. Basically, data access security never goes away, it just gets more granular, complex, and ultimately, mercurial.