DataDirect ODBC Drivers for DB2

DataDirect Technologies offers the only wire protocol, 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for DB2 that run on every major platform (including UNIX, Linux and Windows) and can connect to DB2 running on multiple back-end server platforms (including Linux, UNIX, Windows, iSeries, and z/OS).

Organizations with ODBC applications that connect to DB2 can experience significant savings in terms of application overall cost from DataDirect's unique driver architecture and high performance. Whether you are an architect looking to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) within your enterprise or a developer looking for the best-performing ODBC driver for DB2, DataDirect has exactly what you need.

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DataDirect offers both 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for DB2 that use innovative wire protocol technology. Wire protocol architecture is what allows DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 to simultaneously supports connections to multiple versions and back-ends for DB2 as well as offer the following benefits to ODBC applications of all types:

  • Simplified development
  • Reduced deployment costs
  • Maximum uptime and runtime performance

To learn more about the advantages of choosing DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2, read the materials below and follow the related links for deeper technical information.

DataDirect ODBC drivers for DB2 - Topics:

When you are ready to evaluate DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 with your application, download a driver package. Contact us if you would like assistance in evaluating.

Why Choose DataDirect ODBC drivers for DB2?

No need to deploy DB2 Connect

Configuring and maintaining the DB2 Connect client libraries across an entire enterprise can be a huge support burden. DataDirect Technologies' ODBC driver for DB2 uses wire protocol technology, meaning that that it connects to DB2 servers without the need for DB2 Connect.

IMPORTANCE: Use of wire protocol drivers removes the dependencies on any software from the database vendor, greatly lessens the time and cost to deploy applications, and reduces the support cost of maintaining applications that need access to DB2.

Best ODBC driver performance for any production scenario

DataDirect Technologies' ODBC driver for DB2 is optimized to communicate directly and efficiently with DB2 servers using the DB2 DRDA protocol. By eliminating the requirement to communicate with DB2 through the additional layer of DB2 Connect, ODBC applications can avoid performance bottlenecks. Additionally, DataDirect offers a Performance Wizard to help organizations tune their DataDirect ODBC drivers for any application architecture and network topology.

IMPORTANCE: Organizations want the fastest possible access to their DB2 databases. ODBC drivers that use DB2 Connect are limited to the performance features that are available in the DB2 Call Level Interface (CLI). Tuning DB2 Connect for performance requires adjusting settings separately from the driver itself. DataDirect's wire protocol driver for DB2 communicates directly with the DB2 server and can leverage any performance optimizations the server offers, even optimizations that may not be exposed through DB2 Connect.

Quality and Reliability

The ability to consistently perform well in any set of circumstances defines the quality of DataDirect ODBC drivers. All DataDirect ODBC drivers are thoroughly tested to ensure that no matter what application environment and architecture you use, the ODBC drivers will work. DataDirect tests its ODBC drivers using the largest, most mature ODBC testing infrastructure in existence, the DataDirect ODBC Verification Suite (OVS). The OVS runs millions of test cases against each DataDirect ODBC drivers across all major client operating systems, including UNIX and Linux. This rigorous testing process is designed to guarantee that there will be no unpleasant surprises whenever a driver is rolled out into production. In addition, DataDirect has extensive third-party test suites developed by DataDirect Technologies in conjunction with 300+ OEMs that ensure that all DataDirect ODBC drivers are compatible with all major database applications available.

IMPORTANCE: Investing in an ODBC driver that is highly tested and certified with a wide variety of applications available across the industry protects an organization against unnecessary and crippling downtime and increased support and maintenance costs.

Technical Support

DataDirect Technologies' total focus is on data access middleware. In addition to long relationships with each of the major database vendors, DataDirect takes a unique approach to customer support by offering the largest, most robust, worldwide support organization available anywhere by phone, interactive web, email, and fax. DataDirect has the largest knowledgebase in the industry on ODBC, applications, and middleware. SupportLink, DataDirect's support organization, has received a 95% approval rating for 5 years running from its customers and is one of the main reasons why DataDirect data connectivity technology has become the industry standard, relied on by millions of users and 300+ ISVs.

IMPORTANCE: Consider the total cost of ownership in addition to the initial acquisition cost of software. This includes the costs to resolve technical support issues as quickly as possible in addition to the overall costs to your business for application outages and downtime issues in production. Superior technical support is essential to reducing these costs, allowing applications and the businesses that depend on them to run uninterrupted.

Competitive Advantage Matrix for ODBC to DB2

See the competitive advantage matrix which compares the performance and reliability advantages of using DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 versus IBM's DB2 CLI ODBC driver.

Specific Features for DB2

DataDirect's 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for DB2 offer the most extensive technical feature set of any ODBC driver available for DB2. When compared with IBM's DB2 CLI ODBC driver, the features offered demonstrate a compelling set of reasons for switching to DataDirect's wire protocol architecture ODBC driver for DB2.

For further technical reading on specific topics, review the following links:

Connection Failover and Client-Side Load Balancing

The DataDirect ODBC driver for DB2 provides Connection Failover and client-side Load Balancing features. These features are implemented using an approach that is 100% independent of IBM's own proprietary implementation.

IMPORTANCE: Connection Failover allows the driver to try to connect to alternate servers when the primary server connection is unavailable. Load Balancing means that these connection attempts will be random, thereby not overloading the primary server. These features ensure that access to your critical data will not be impeded by the failure of a particular server. DataDirect's implementation ensures that you will get consistent behavior across DB2 database versions and back-end platforms as well as to other relational databases.

Operating System Authentication

In addition to support for standard database User ID/password authentication, DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 also supports operating system authentication via the Kerberos network authentication protocol developed by MIT.

IMPORTANCE: Support for Kerberos allows implementation of Single Sign-On environments which provides organizations advantages such as auditing for regulatory compliance and centralized account management for greater security and simpler account management.

Support for SSL Data Encryption

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is an industry-standard protocol for sending encrypted data over database connections. SSL secures the integrity of your data by encrypting information and providing client/server authentication. DataDirect DB2 wire protocol ODBC drivers support SSL on all platforms when connecting to DB2 on iSeries. DataDirect also provides database-specific encryption for DB2 on Linux, UNIX, Windows, and z/OS (56-bit DES encryption protocol).

IPv6 Support

The pool of IPv4 Internet addresses is shrinking rapidly. IPv6 (Internet protocol version 6) opens up a large number of additional Internet addresses and is supported by the latest version of all major databases. The U.S. government has mandated that federal agencies use IPv6 by June 2008. IPv6 is supported by DataDirect DB2 wire protocol drivers.

Interoperability

The DataDirect ODBC driver for DB2 enables applications to access different relational databases with fewer lines of code and less maintenance, ensuring consistent functionality and performance regardless of the database.

DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 includes interoperability features such as a common code base across all DataDirect ODBC drivers; standard escape syntax for stored procedures, outer joins, scalar functions, and date, time and timestamps. Additional functionality includes standardized connection failover and database load balancing, and standard handling of BLOBs and CLOBs

By contrast, IBM's DB2 CLI ODBC driver is specifically designed to support features in a proprietary IBM way which means adding support for other databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, and Informix requires a great deal of additional coding.

IMPORTANCE: Almost every organization has multiple databases that applications may have to access. Use of DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 allows developers to create application code that is truly independent of IBM "lock-in" and the DB2 database.

Unicode Support

The DataDirect ODBC driver for DB2 fully supports multiple Unicode encodings and most non-English character sets across all operating system platforms. In addition, the driver also supports all database encodings available for DB2.

IMPORTANCE: Support for Unicode is critical to the needs of multi-national organizations that require the use of international character sets from a single application. Support for all DB2 database encodings ensures that no matter what kind of application you use, data integrity is assured with DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2.

Cursor Support

DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 optimizes forward-only cursors to pre-fetch multiple records, reducing network traffic and improving performance. Two types of scrollable cursors are supported to allow maximum application flexibility:

  • Static cursors are ideal for applications that require high levels of concurrency on the database server and require the ability to scroll forwards and backwards through result sets. DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 fully implements the static cursor model and provides options to fine-tune static cursor performance (for example, options allowing a user to set how much long textual data is cached).
  • Keyset-driven cursors are the preferred scrollable cursor model when the application cannot afford to buffer the data from a static cursor. DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 implements a robust keyset-cursor model that works well with dynamic enterprise applications.

IMPORTANCE: Forward-only cursors allow only one pass through the data, which can severely limit application flexibility. Static scrollable cursors provide application flexibility, but they must be used judiciously because of performance issues when caching large amounts of data. Keyset-driven scrollable cursors provide the most application flexibility and are very important in building enterprise-level applications.

XML Persistence

DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 fully supports XML persistence.

IMPORTANCE: DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 includes functionality to persist DB2 result sets as XML data files. The benefit is that an organization can quickly publish information stored in a DB2 database to the Web thus making it more useful and flexible. DataDirect offers the only ODBC driver for DB2e on the market that provides this functionality.

Additional DB2  Features

  • Support for DB2 data types: Bigint, Blob, Clob, Char(), Varchar(), and Long Varchar() for Bit Data, and Timestamp
  • Supports DB2 Unicode data types Dbclob, Graphic, Vargraphic, and Long Vargraphic
  • Supports DB2 Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs)
  • Supports the ability to execute a single SQL statement using multiple rows of values
  • Tuning options to control the amount of data that is returned across the network on single roundtrips from the DB2 server
  • DB2 on iSeries V5R4
    • 2 MB SQL statements – the driver will allow applications to use SQL statements up to 2 MB in length
    • 128 bit column names – the driver will handle column names up to 128 bits in length
    • Raise Error – the driver will correctly handle SQL statements or stored procedure calls that use the RAISE_ERROR syntax
    • New timestamp format – the driver will correctly handle the old timestamp format as well as the new timestamp format introduced with V5R4
  • DB2 v9.1 on Linux, UNIX, and Windows
    • XML data type – the driver will map the DB2 XML data type to SQL_WLONGVARCHAR and support standard conversions
    • Native XQuery statements – the driver will support the direct execution of XQuery expressions

Performance and Scalability

Best ODBC performance for any production scenario

DataDirect Technologies' ODBC driver for DB2 is optimized to communicate directly and efficiently with DB2 servers using the DB2 DRDA wire protocol. Users can expect significant performance gains over DB2 ODBC drivers that use DB2 Connect in both single-thread (single user) and multi-threaded (multiple user) situations. Additionally, DataDirect offers a Performance Wizard to help organizations tune their DataDirect ODBC drivers for any application architecture and network topology.

IBM DB2 ODBC Driver Production Scenario
Click Graphic for a full-sized image

IMPORTANCE: Organizations want the fastest possible access to their DB2 databases and should expect consistent performance as additional applications or application users are added. ODBC drivers that use DB2 Connect are limited by the performance features that are available in the DB2 Call Level Interface (CLI) and cause severe application performance bottlenecks. DataDirect's wire protocol ODBC driver for DB2 communicates directly with the DB2 server and can therefore avoid technical issues with DB2 Connect that limit ODBC application performance. In addition, wire protocol ODBC drivers can leverage any performance optimizations the server offers, even optimizations that may not be exposed through DB2 Connect.

DB2 Database Versions and Platforms Supported

A single DataDirect ODBC driver for DB2 can simultaneously handle multiple connections to different DB2 database versions and platform combinations. The database version / platform combinations supported by the DataDirect ODBC driver for DB2 include:

  • DB2 UDB v7.1, v7.2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows
  • DB2 UDB v8.1, v8.2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows
  • DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows
  • DB2 UDB v7x, v8.1 for z/OS
  • DB2 UDB V5R1, V5R2, V5R3, V5R4 for iSeries

DataDirect is the only vendor that provides a single ODBC driver for all of these DB2 database versions and platforms. IBM requires multiple ODBC drivers as well as multiple versions of the DB2 Connect client libraries in order to offer the same level of support.

IMPORTANCE: DB2 Connect client libraries pose a significant headache for organizations that wish to deploy multiple applications to the same platform that must simultaneously access different versions or back-end platforms of DB2. New applications are usually built to take advantage of the functionality of the latest DB2 database version and must consequently require the latest version of DB2 Connect. When the time comes to deploy these new applications, the DB2 Connect must be upgraded on each platform where the application is deployed and all existing applications on the platform must be retested with the latest version of DB2 Connect. Because DataDirect's ODBC driver for DB2 does not require DB2 Connect, it can support simultaneous connections to multiple versions of DB2, costs of deploying and testing applications against multiple versions or back-ends of DB2 are significantly reduced.

Application Platforms and Processor Architectures Supported

DataDirect offers 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for DB2 on every major platform – Linux, UNIX, and Windows – for a wide variety of 32-bit and 64-bit processor architectures including Intel Itanium and AMD / Intel x64. DataDirect's broad platform coverage for ODBC applications seeking to connect with the DB2 database is matched by no other vendor (including IBM!).

IMPORTANCE: Organizations can avoid hardware "lock-in" issues by selecting an ODBC driver available on almost any major Linux, UNIX, and Windows platform / chipset combination. ODBC drivers for DB2 that rely on DB2 Connect are subject to the limitations of what platforms and chipsets IBM chooses to port the DB2 Connect client libraries to.

For the latest information on the client platforms, platform versions, and processor architectures supported by DataDirect's ODBC drivers for DB2, please see the support matrices at the links below:

32-bit ODBC drivers - Connect for ODBC

64-bit ODBC drivers - Connect64 for ODBC

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