Products : Connect for ADO.NET : ADO.NET Why?

Why License DataDirect ADO.NET Data Providers?

This document describes reasons for obtaining your ADO.NET provider from the leading vendor of database connectivity components instead obtaining it from database vendors. Some advantages of using the DataDirect Connect® for ADO.NET data providers are:

• High Quality Products for the Best Overall Data Provider Experience
• 100% Managed Code
• No Database Clients Required
• Provider Compatibility and Interoperability
• Universal ADO.NET Access to All Major Databases
• Advanced Security Features
• Distributed Transaction Support
• Unmatched Customer Support with Live People!
• Support for Software Developers
• We Are the Leading Vendor of Database Connectivity Components
• Conclusion

High Quality Products for the Best Overall Data Provider Experience

At DataDirect Technologies™ our sole focus is on building great database connectivity components. Customers consider the cost of our components a small investment that is paid off many times over by bottom line improvements in increased revenue, improved programmer productivity, faster evaluations, and quicker support resolution.

Managed data providers for ADO.NET from DataDirect Technologies give you the best combination of functionality, performance, reliability, scalability, and ease of use of any solution available today. We are the only vendor to offer a complete suite of ADO.NET data providers built with 100% managed code for all of the major databases.

True "1° of separation" with your data only comes from fully managed code. Trust the experienced leader in ODBC, ADO, and JDBC™ to provide you with the best .NET data connectivity experience.

100% Managed Code

Our data providers for ADO.NET are built with 100% managed code. This means that they work entirely within the .NET framework and communicate with the databases at the lowest level possible — the wire protocol. Other data providers communicate with the databases through the database client libraries. This means that .NET applications using these providers must reach outside of the .NET environment (specifically the Common Language Runtime or CLR) to access the client library. Doing so opens up security risks and drags down performance.

No Database Clients Required

Because the DataDirect data providers use wire protocol technology, no external pieces are required to access the database. Other data providers require the native Windows database client to be installed. Using database clients (such as DB2 CAE or Oracle Networking software) can lead to numerous management and deployment headaches. Because many applications on a single machine may use the same client software, upgrading or changing the version of the client software for one application may cause negative effects on other applications.

Provider Compatibility and Interoperability

Microsoft intentionally did not produce a tight specification for how ADO.NET data providers need to work. Therefore, different data providers for different databases in the marketplace can have a wide variation of implementation approaches. This means that programmers have to produce different code to accomplish the same operations when using different data providers. In some cases, even their logic must change when moving between data providers.

At DataDirect Technologies, we always build our drivers and data providers with a common approach and architecture. We are focused on minimizing the amount of code that must change when using our ADO.NET managed data providers across different databases by keeping the interfaces and functionality the same across data providers.

With the release of the .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft introduced interoperability features to help developers write truly portable code. DataDirect Technologies fully supports the Common Model for ADO.NET 2.0 in DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET 3.x data providers. Although the Common Model solves some of the interoperability problems that existed in earlier versions of ADO.NET, it does not solve all of them. Interoperability features in the DataDirect data providers go far beyond what the Common Model does, for example, supporting standard SQL constructs (such as parameter markers and scalar function escapes) across all data providers to help make the SQL statements portable across databases.

Universal ADO.NET Access to All Major Databases

DataDirect Technologies is the first company to offer managed ADO.NET data providers to Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, and Sybase. In addition, using our SequeLink Server for ODBC Socket, your application can connect to virtually any ODBC-compliant database from the .NET environment.

In addition, DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET supports all Windows platforms and the .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0.

Advanced Security Features

DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET supports operating system authentication, which allows organizations to create a Single Sign-On environment that bolsters security, eliminates the need for users to log in separately for each application, and reduces the costs associated with managing user accounts. In addition, Connect for ADO.NET supports SSL encryption to protect critical data that is transmitted between the application and the database server.

Distributed Transaction Support

Distributed Transaction support is an extremely important capability to have in a data provider. DataDirect Technologies is the first company to offer distributed transaction support across Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2 and Sybase with our ADO.NET data providers.

DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET 3.x data providers support the System.Transactions namespace. System.Transactions, which was introduced in the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, contains classes to allow you to write a transactional application. In the infrastructure provided in System.Transactions is a grouping that allows simple and more efficient transactional programming. Transaction behavior can be controlled directly using the Transaction class, or implicitly using the TransactionScope class. We recommend using the System.Transactions objects for all transaction processing with the DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET 3.x data providers.

The DataDirect Connect for .NET 2.2 data providers use the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) as the transaction manager. The MS DTC can be used to update multiple databases and files from a single application, update geographically distributed databases, and update databases that have been partitioned for scalability. MS DTC uses a two phase commit protocol to ensure that all the resource managers commit the transaction or all abort it, thus ensuring the integrity of the data involved.

Unmatched Customer Support with Live People!

Should you ever need help getting the most out of our data providers, our support team is available 24x7 with a live voice on the phone ready to answer questions about all databases. Rest assured, we'll be standing by ready to help if you ever need us.

Support for Software Developers

Our ADO.NET managed data providers come with a software developer kit (SDK) that includes a development license for our suite of OLE DB data providers (not available for DB2.) This development license will help you use some of the advanced Visual Studio 2005 tools and get even more developer productivity.

This kit is included with our ADO.NET data providers for use by customers who license their data providers directly from us. Customers who wish to embed our data providers in their own software should discuss licensing options for the SDK with their account managers.

The .NET Framework 2.0 includes tracing support for the Microsoft ADO.NET data providers. This support delivers fine-grained debugging of data access components across multiple tiers and into .NET Framework managed code, as well as native code.

DataDirect Technologies data providers have always had built-in tracing abilities, giving developers a tool for debugging to help speed development. Each of our data providers can trace the input arguments to all of its public method calls, as well as the outputs and returns from those methods (anything that a user could potentially call). This is a core part of our product and is available to anyone who licenses our technology.

We Are the Leading Vendor of Database Connectivity Components

Our formula for success is to be a leader, not a follower, in providing the best database connectivity components for all industry standards, always ahead of any competition. We've proven our position as an industry leader over and over again. Here are just a few examples of our technical and market leadership:

• We were the first vendor to ship ADO.NET data providers with 100% managed code for all the major databases.
• We were the first third-party vendor to release commercial ODBC Drivers in 1992.
• We have consistently been first vendor to comply with each new version of the ODBC standard and we are the first and only vendor to come out with a full suite of wire protocol ODBC drivers.
• Sun Microsystems came to DataDirect Technologies to get our help to write the original JDBC standard based on our experience with ODBC and we have had a continued strong relationship with Sun ever since.
• We were the first vendor to ship commercial JDBC drivers, the first vendor to be J2EE 1.3 and 1.4 certified (across all major databases), and the first vendor to be certified under Sun's J2EE Certification Test Suite (CTS).

DataDirect Technologies is also very active in setting the direction for data connectivity standards across the industry through its active participation in the following organizations:

• JDBC Expert Panel - DataDirect Technologies has been a member since the group's inception.
• ANSI CLI Committee - DataDirect Technologies helped drive the effort to align the ANSI specification with the Open Group Specification.
• JSR 114 RowSet Expert Group - DataDirect Technologies is a charter member.
• SQL Access Group - DataDirect Technologies was a member of the team that developed the latest SQL CLI specification.

Our products are embedded by over 300 independent software vendors who trust our software and service to help make their products better (for example, Manugistics, IBM, webMethods, and Software AG).

The major DBMS companies and application server companies are all also OEM customers of ours as evidenced below:

• Sun embeds our JDBC drivers in its Java System Application Server.
• Oracle embeds our JDBC drivers in Oracle's 9i Application Server and our ODBC drivers in Oracle Discoverer, Designer, Developer, and Express.
• IBM embeds our JDBC drivers in WebSphere Application Server and Crossworlds and our ODBC drivers in IBM MQSI, DB2 Warehouse manager, and Informix/RedBrick. They also embed our ODBC and JDBC drivers in several products.
• Microsoft distributes our JDBC driver as the SQL Server database client.
• Sybase licenses our technology and distributes our ODBC driver and ADO data provider as the only drivers and data providers for Sybase ASE. In addition they embed our ODBC drivers in Direct Connect, PowerSoft, ianywhere, and EAServer, and our JDBC drivers in Replication Agent.

Our relationships with the major database companies enable us to maintain frequent contact with their development and product management teams, providing early access to new database versions and insight into architecture modifications.

Conclusion

At DataDirect Technologies, we build the DataDirect Connect™ for ADO.NET data providers using a common approach and architecture. By keeping our interfaces and functionality the same in all of our ADO.NET data providers, we minimize the amount of code that must change when you use the data providers across different databases.

Our ADO.NET data providers are built with 100% managed code. This means that they work entirely within the .NET CLR, for better performance and security. The data providers communicate with the databases at the lowest level possible — the wire protocol, meaning that no database clients are required.

DataDirect Technologies offers the following ADO.NET data providers built with 100% managed code that support the .NET Framework Version 2.0:

• DataDirect Connect® for ADO.NET 3.1 DB2 data provider
  
  
• DataDirect Connect® for ADO.NET 3.1 Oracle data provider
  
  
• DataDirect Connect® for ADO.NET 3.1 SQL Server data provider
  
  
• DataDirect Connect® for ADO.NET 3.1 Sybase data provider

Existing code written for earlier versions of the .NET Framework and earlier versions of DataDirect Connect for .NET is compatible with the 3.x version of the data providers. Note that the applications must be re-compiled using the .NET Framework 2.0 or 3.0.

However, if your applications require Windows NT, Windows 98, and Windows Me, and/or the .NET Framework 1.x, you can use the DataDirect Connect for .NET 2.2 data providers, which DataDirect will continue to make available.