Solutions for Relational Databases: Microsoft SQL Server

Toyota Motor Sales manages and queries data stored in Microsoft SQL Server and other databases using Hyperion’s business intelligence tool. Hyperion’s tool embeds DataDirect drivers, which allows Hyperion to provide out-of-the-box connectivity to SQL Server and other major databases. And for Toyota, having a simple, reliable way to connect to all their data sources meant a savings of $100,000 in projects costs earmarked for tackling the complex data connectivity issue.

Companies like Toyota and Hyperion found out that their choice of a third-party solution for SQL Server can have a significant economic and technical impact on an application throughout its life cycle.

DataDirect’s support for Microsoft SQL Server can dramatically speed the development process by employing a consistent, reliable means of data connectivity through the ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET standard APIs. In addition, if you need to query SQL Server data for use in XML applications, we offer DataDirect XQuery - an implementation of the W3C XQuery standard that helps you develop applications that deal with XML faster.

Following are the key results you can expect from choosing DataDirect for your Microsoft SQL Server applications and why.

At Runtime: Improve Application Performance, Scalability and Reliability

Using DataDirect components in your Microsoft SQL Server applications can reduce system downtime and results in faster, more reliable interactions with employees, customers, and partners. Here is why:

• Consistent high performance – Direct access to SQL Server databases through our clientless architecture improves application response time. In addition, DataDirect components are optimized for maximum performance within a range of scenarios, especially for applications that are read intensive─for both single-threaded and multi-threaded connections. Our products also come with a Performance Tuning Wizard (for ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET) that allows you to fine-tune your environment to increase performance and decrease network traffic.
• Faster execution time for SQL Server XQueries – Special optimization and mediation features enable our XQuery product to dramatically outperform other tools or hand-coded applications, resulting in the best possible XQuery performance.
• Better scalability – DataDirect products communicate directly with the database server, providing better scalability and eliminating the overhead involved with client libraries. In addition, DataDirect conducts multi-threaded scalability tests to ensure our products for SQL Server make the most efficient use of network traffic, disk I/O, and memory. And our XQuery product employs XML streaming, which drastically reduces the amount of memory required when processing large XML documents.
• Tested for stability – The quality of our products is verified through a stringent test process, including tests for standards compliance, thousands of tasks representing load-intensive production environments, and specific testing against all supported Microsoft SQL Server database versions. In addition, our XQuery product provides stability for developers through our standards-based XQuery and XQJ (XQuery for Java) implementations. DataDirect XQuery passes the XML Query Test Suite (XQTS) with 99+% compliancy.

Save Time and Money in Development

With DataDirect, developers spend less time on managing data connectivity and integration issues and more time on the application’s business logic and user requirements. The reasons for this are:

• Support for multiple versions of Microsoft SQL Server from a single component – One DataDirect driver or provider supports all versions of SQL Server (e.g., one ODBC driver supports SQL Server 7, 2000, and 2005). This eliminates the need to test, deploy and maintain different SQL Server drivers and client software, which can escalate costs in environments using multiple SQL Server versions. Developers needing to access data from any SQL Server system will only need to use a single component, and won’t need to worry about which driver will access a particular database.
• Strict adherence to open standards – DataDirect’s commitment to interoperability and complete compliance with data connectivity standards (ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET) ensures no adoption of proprietary extensions. This means that your developers won’t have to keep up with proprietary changes in the underlying data connectivity layer and allows us to offer database-independent support for features such as stored procedure escape syntax, date/time escape syntax, connection failover, and database load balancing.
• Common architecture – All DataDirect products share a common code base that makes it easy for developers to update code when the underlying database is changed or upgraded. If your applications require access to databases other than Microsoft SQL Server or maintain different versions of SQL Server, this can be an important feature. It enables more code reuse because our products abstract the differences between various corporate databases and between different SQL Server versions. In addition, all DataDirect products offer SQL leveling─the ability to write a SQL statement that can be executed across multiple databases or database versions.
• Enterprise functionality – In addition to supporting the full range of SQL Server features, DataDirect provides many enterprise-level features that help your business to mitigate risk and costs such as connection failover, client-side load balancing, support for Windows authentication for more secure connections, support for Blob and Clob APIs, and time-saving utilities for tuning performance and testing and debugging applications.
• No client libraries required – DataDirect components for Microsoft SQL Server provide direct communication between the application and the database, eliminating the need for client libraries. Removing the need for the database client software greatly reduces the cost to develop, test, and deploy applications. In addition, application issues relating to client version issues are eliminated.
• Support for processing XML and SQL Server data – DataDirect’s XQuery product helps you get XML projects done faster because it doesn’t require any servers or additional software like other XQuery implementations on the market. Because DataDirect XQuery resides in the middle tier, along with your application, your XQueries and application are insulated from any changes to the SQL Server database or other underlying software.

Simplify and Reduce Costs in Deployment

DataDirect components can save your organization a significant amount of time and money in the process of planning, executing, and debugging Microsoft SQL Server applications for these reasons:

• Application upgrades and enhancements – When applications need to be migrated to the latest version of SQL Server, developers can simply use DataDirect to call the data source, instead of learning the particulars of the new data source. Development effort can be focused on new application or enhancement requirements instead of new database connectivity issues.
• Comprehensive database and platform support – DataDirect fully supports Microsoft SQL Server 7, 2000, and 2005 running on any Windows server. In addition, DataDirect provides ODBC access to SQL Server from both UNIX and Linux-based applications. This is important because many companies support both Windows and UNIX/Linux environments for multiple databases, including SQL Server.
• Fully backwards-compatible – DataDirect’s Microsoft SQL Server components are fully backwards-compatible with previous releases of the database so you can readily support different database versions without having to install and test an additional driver.
• Avoid deployment problems due to client libraries – DataDirect components do not require the use of database client libraries, which can create a variety of deployment problems because of file size and lack of compatibility across multiple database versions. Each time an application is deployed or upgraded, developers can spend hours or days configuring and debugging problems related to the client libraries.
• Reduced maintenance for SQL Server-XML applications – Our XQuery product adheres completely to the W3C XQuery Standard, whereas other XQuery tools use proprietary extensions, requiring additional coding and re-coding of XQueries every time a new version of the tool is released.

Data access and XML processing can be complicated. That’s why it’s also important to ensure your product for SQL Server is backed by knowledgeable and responsive customer support professionals. At DataDirect, we offer 24-hour technical support, including phone, web, email, forum, and fax support. Our knowledgebase is the largest in the industry with over 2500 documents.

To learn more about the economic and technical benefits of choosing DataDirect for your Microsoft SQL Server applications, read the Nucleus Research report, ROI Evaluation Report of DataDirect’s Data Connectivity Products.

To speak with an expert about DataDirect products for SQL Server, please call 1-800-876-3101 or submit a Request for Information form and an account executive will contact you.