Release Notes: DataDirect Connect for ODBC , Release 6.0, Service Pack 2

DataDirect is the industry’s only wire protocol ODBC driver for Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL and more.

New Features in All Drivers

New or Updated Drivers:

DataDirect Bulk Load

DataDirect Bulk Load improves and expands upon current methods for inserting mass amounts of data into a database as quickly as possible. Our 100% driver-based implementation delivers the best performance for bulk load scenarios without the need for database vendor bulk load tools or client libraries.

DataDirect Application Failover

DataDirect offers Application Failover in its Oracle, DB2, Sybase, and MySQL ODBC drivers to automatically and transparently redirect requests to an alternate database server if the primary server is unavailable because of a hardware failure or traffic overload. DataDirect Application Failover is a flexible implementation that works with or without key data replication / clustering technologies to deliver improved application uptime, in some cases without requiring application code changes.

Advanced Connection Pooling

DataDirect now supports connection pooling inside each driver rather than within the Driver Manager across all supported platforms. Our unique implementation offers significant benefits over any other ODBC connection pooling implementation (including the ODBC Driver Manager on Windows):

  • No application changes are required to use this feature.
  • Through tuning options you can limit the maximum number of connections, pre-load the connection pools, or re-connect dead connections in the pool.
  • You can check pool status and clear pools through API calls.

Virtualization Certification

DataDirect has expanded its commitment and support for using DataDirect Connect for ODBC in virtualized environments by using our industry-leading test and verification suites to certify these virtualization platforms and technologies:

  • AIX LPARS
  • HP nPartitions and vPars
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Full Virtualization
  • Solaris Zones (Containers)
  • Windows Server 2008 Virtualization
  • VMWare

New Client Platforms

The following client platforms are now supported across all drivers:

  • AIX 6.1
  • Windows Server 2008 on x86-64
  • Windows Vista SP1 on x86-64
  • Windows XP SP3 on x86-64
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) version 11 (Service Pack 1)

Btrieve

Database Versions
  • Pervasive SQL 8.5

DB2 Wire Protocol Driver

Performance Features
  • DataDirect Bulk Load
  • Advanced Connection Pooling
  • Multiple performance enhancements and improvements
  • Additional performance tuning options

Enterprise Features

Security Features
  • Data encryption via SSL with client authentication support to DB2 on LUW, z/OS, and iSeries

Database Features

DB2 V9.5 on Linux/Unix/Windows new features:

  • Database compression
  • Workload manager
  • Larger identifier lengths
  • New DECFLOAT data type
  • New SQL functions
  • Global variables
  • XML data in non-Unicode databases
  • XQuery Update expressions

Driver Functionality
  • Client Monitoring Information - A database-independent way for applications to set client information such as application name, client user, and client host name for easier runtime troubleshooting. Requires no application changes.
  • Full WLM classification for DB2 on z/OS
  • Query Timeout support
  • Login Timeout support

Database Versions
  • DB2 on iSeries V6R1
  • DB2 v9.5 on Linux/Unix/Windows
  • DB2 v9.7 on Linux/Unix/Windows (Available in SP2 of ODBC release 6.0)

Platforms
  • 32-bit platform support: HP-UX Itanium

New Greenplum Wire Protocol Driver

Performance Features
  • Advanced Connection Pooling

Enterprise Features

Security Features
  • Password encryption

Driver Functionality
  • Unicode
  • Stored Procedures / User-Defined Functions
  • Triggers
  • Query Timeout
  • Login Timeout
  • Asynchronous execution
  • Cancelling queries
  • Transactions
  • Parameter Arrays
  • SQL Escapes (interoperability)
  • Views
  • XML data type

Database Versions
  • Greenplum 3.1
  • Greenplum 3.2 and 3.3 (Available in SP2 of ODBC release 6.0)

Platforms
  • 32-bit and 64-bit drivers available (64-bit drivers available in SP1 of ODBC release 6.0)
  • Supports Linux, Unix, and Windows:
    • AIX
    • HP-UX PA-RISC
    • HP-UX Itanium
    • Linux x86-64
    • Linux Itanium
    • Solaris SPARC
    • Solaris x64
    • Windows x86-64
    • Windows Itanium

Specification Support
  • Compliant with ODBC 3.52 specification, Level 1 (complete Core API and Level 2 features)

Informix Driver

Database Versions
  • Informix 11.5

MySQL Wire Protocol Driver

Performance Features
  • Advanced Connection Pooling

Enterprise Features

Security Features
  • SSL encryption with client authentication support

Driver Functionality
  • Query Timeout support
  • Login Timeout support
  • SQLCancel support

Database Versions
  • MySQL v5.1 (Available in SP1 of ODBC release 6.0)

Oracle Wire Protocol Driver

Performance Features
  • DataDirect Bulk Load
  • Advanced Connection Pooling
  • Multiple performance enhancements and improvements
  • Additional performance tuning options
  • New Oracle 11g features (no changes to application code required):
    • Server-side result set caching – Leverage this capability provided by Oracle for better performance and scalability. DataDirect automatically inserts hint syntax necessary to enable caching and boost performance. (Oracle’s driver requires hints be added to SQL statements to use this feature.)
    • Table and Tablespace Compression
    • SECUREFILE LOB Storage

Enterprise Features

Security Features

New Oracle 11g features:

  • Transparent Data and Tablespace Encryption – Leverage this database-level encryption capability provided by Oracle. Certification ensures interactions work seamlessly with data that is encrypted on the Oracle server.

Driver Functionality
  • Query Timeout support
  • Login Timeout support

PostgreSQL Wire Protocol Driver

Enterprise Features

Security Features
  • Data Encryption via SSL with client authentication
  • Password Encryption

Driver Functionality
  • Unicode
  • IPv6 support
  • Stored Procedures / User-Defined Functions
  • Triggers
  • Query Timeout
  • Login Timeout
  • Asynchronous execution
  • Cancelling queries
  • Transactions
  • Parameter Arrays
  • SQL Escapes (interoperability)
  • Foreign Keys
  • Views
  • XML data type

Database Versions
  • PostgreSQL 8.2 and 8.3

Platforms
  • 32-bit and 64-bit drivers available
  • Supports Linux, Unix, and Windows:
    • AIX
    • HP-UX PA-RISC
    • HP-UX Itanium
    • Linux x86-64
    • Linux Itanium
    • Solaris SPARC
    • Solaris x64
    • Windows x86-64
    • Windows Itanium

Specification Support
  • Compliant with ODBC 3.52 specification, Level 1 (complete Core API and Level 2 features)

SQL Server Native Wire Protocol Driver

Performance Features
  • 35% greater throughput performance (over release 5.3)
  • 75% greater CPU efficiency (over release 5.3)
  • DataDirect Bulk Load
  • Advanced Connection Pooling
  • Multiple performance features and enhancements

Enterprise Features

Security Features
  • Data encryption via SSL
  • Kerberos and NTLM Authentication

Driver Functionality
  • Multiple Active Result Sets
  • IPv6
  • Query Timeout support
  • Login Timeout support

Database Versions

New SQL Server 2008 features:

  • Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)
  • Database Compression
  • New data types
  • New Scalar functions and SQL constructs
  • FILESTREAM data type attributes

Sybase Wire Protocol Driver

Performance Features

Enterprise Features

Driver Functionality
  • Query Timeout support
  • Login Timeout support

Teradata Driver

Database Versions
  • Teradata v12.0

Platforms

Additional 64-bit platform support:

  • AIX
  • Linux x64
  • Solaris SPARC
  • Windows x64
Release History