DataDirect's ADO.NET Data Providers - Factors Critical to Success

ADO.NET Provider Feature

DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET

Competing .NET Data Providers

100% Managed Code

DataDirect Providers are 100% managed. DataDirect ensures that all data processing is done within the CLR, providing better performance, scalability, security and reliability

No other .NET data provider is 100% managed. Alternatives that are not 100% managed require calls outside the CLR; degrading performance and creating instability and compromised performance due to memory leaks.

The result is a heightened risk of security breaches as well as data connectivity failure.

No dependency on native database client

DataDirect's ADO.NET data providers communicate directly with the database through wire level protocol, eliminating the need for the native database client.

As a result, deployment costs and installation upgrades are effectively eliminated, as are conflicts between client versions.

Competing .NET data providers require native database client installations, adding substantial cost to deployment and maintenance, and increasing the likelihood of client version conflicts.

Additionally, this approach adds substantial cost and complexity to testing and Quality Assurance efforts each time clients are upgraded.

Comprehensive interoperability between database vendors and versions

DataDirect's ADO.NET data providers offer SQL leveling capability that ensures commonality across database vendors (Oracle, DB2, Sybase and SQL Server) and between vendor database versions (Oracle 8i, 9i, and 10g, for example).

As a result, development, deployment and Quality Assurance efforts are streamlined and application flexibility is greatly increased.

Competing .NET data providers offer fewer features and functionality.

Distributed transaction support, load balancing, connection retry, failover and connection pooling, for example, are not supported by other .NET data providers.

Superior performance and scalability

DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET offers architectural advantages that lead to superior performance and improved scalability.

DataDirect's providers have been proven under stringent testing and benchmarking procedures that have shown significantly improved performance (50% to 350%) under load, while demanding fewer server and network resources.

Competing .NET data providers lack the performance and scalability capabilities to perform under load intensive, mission critical data connectivity environments.

As a result, organizations are forced to compensate for driver shortcomings by installing additional servers dedicated to hosting applications, increasing overall cost and complexity of deployment.