DataDirect ODBC Drivers for Sybase

DataDirect Technologies offers the fastest, most scalable 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for Sybase for every major platform including UNIX, Linux and Windows. Whether you are an architect looking to connect a UNIX application to Sybase or a developer looking for the best-performing ODBC driver for Sybase, DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase should be your ODBC driver of choice.

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DataDirect offers both 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for Sybase that use innovative wire protocol technology. Wire protocol architecture is what allows DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase to simultaneously supports connections to multiple versions of Sybase 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 Sybase, read the materials below and follow the related links for deeper technical information.

DataDirect ODBC drivers for Sybase - Topics:

When you are ready to evaluate DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase with your application, download a driver package or contact us if you would like assistance in evaluating.

Why Choose DataDirect ODBC drivers for Sybase?

No need to deploy the Sybase Open Client

Configuring and maintaining the Sybase Open Client libraries across an entire enterprise can be a significant burden for any technical support organization. DataDirect Technologies’ ODBC driver for Sybase uses wire protocol technology, meaning that that it connects to Sybase without the need for the Open Client.

IMPORTANCE: DataDirect wire protocol drivers do not require database vendor software to connect, which greatly lessens the time and cost to deploy applications and reduces the support cost of maintaining applications that need to connect to Sybase.

Best ODBC driver performance for any production scenario

The DataDirect ODBC driver for Sybase is optimized to communicate directly and efficiently with Sybase database using the TDS protocol. By eliminating the requirement to communicate with Sybase through the additional layer of Sybase’s Open Client, 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 Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise databases. DataDirect’s wire protocol ODBC driver for Sybase communicates directly with the Sybase server and can leverage any performance optimizations the server offers.

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+ ISVs 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 including Sybase, DataDirect offers the largest, most robust, worldwide support organization available anywhere by phone, interactive web, email, and fax. DataDirect’s knowledgebase is the largest in the industry with thousands of documents on ODBC, applications, and middleware. SupportLink, DataDirect’s award-winning 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 be minimally affected by outage issues.

Competitive Advantage Matrix for ODBC to Sybase

See the competitive advantage matrix which compares the performance and reliability advantages of using DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase versus the ODBC driver developed by Sybase.

Specific Features for Sybase

DataDirect’s 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for Sybase offer the best technical feature set of any ODBC driver available for Sybase. When compared with the ODBC driver developed by Sybase, the features offered demonstrate a compelling set of reasons for switching to DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase.

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

Connection Failover and Client-Side Load Balancing

The DataDirect ODBC driver for Sybase provides Connection Failover and client-side Load Balancing features. These features utilize a 100% driver-based implementation that does not require any configuration on the server to support.

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 also supports Sybase’s proprietary HA Failover feature and offers the Connection Failover and Load Balancing feature as an alternative approach to achieving maximum application uptime.

Operating System Authentication

In addition to support for standard database User ID/password authentication, DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase 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 Sybase wire protocol ODBC drivers support SSL to protect data that is transmitted between the database and the application, data that could otherwise be compromised.

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 Sybase wire protocol drivers.

Interoperability

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

DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase 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.

By contrast, the ODBC driver developed by Sybase has been designed to support some features, such as failover, in a proprietary Sybase way which means adding support for other databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, 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 Sybase allows developers to create application code that is independent of Sybase "lock-in" and the Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise database.

Unicode Support

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

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 the all database encodings available for Sybase ensures that no matter what kind of application you use, data integrity is assured with DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase.

Full Support for SQL-92 Standard

The DataDirect ODBC driver for Sybase fully supports any SQL statement that complies with the SQL-92 standard. By contrast, the ODBC driver for Sybase lacks full compliance with the SQL-92 standard – in some cases the driver does not return any results for SQL statements containing JOIN or GROUP BY clauses.

IMPORTANCE: DataDirect’s ODBC driver for Sybase is used in production environments around the globe and is embedded by over 300 ISVs because of its reliable support for standards and specifications. Most ODBC applications expect compliance with the SQL-92 standard and those that do can expect few limitations to their utility and flexibility. Customers whose applications require an ODBC driver that require SQL-92 standard compliance should avoid the ODBC driver developed by Sybase.

Microsoft DTC Support
For organizations that need distributed transaction support, the DataDirect ODBC driver for Sybase leverages the facilities of the Microsoft DTC environment in a user-friendly and flexible manner. No separate installation packages are required and DTC is supported "straight out of the box" against multiple versions of the Sybase database. The driver provides flexible recognition features to allow for maximum performance and throughput in any Microsoft Transaction Server/DTC environment.

IMPORTANCE: Enterprise applications running in the Windows NT/2000/XP/Server 2003 environment will probably use Microsoft Transaction Server and its DTC capabilities. It is essential that those DTC capabilities be exposed fully and in a manner that provides for administration and deployment flexibility within the enterprise.

XML Persistence
DataDirect's ODBC driver for Sybase fully supports XML persistence.

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

Additional Sybase Features

  • Support for Sybase 15 data types such as: Bigint, Unsigned bigint, Unsigned int, Unsigned smallint
  • Support for other important Sybase data types: Date, Image, Text, Time, Unichar, Univarchar, Unitext
  • Support for multiple active statements on one connection or across multiple connections
  • Supports the ability to execute a single SQL statement using multiple rows of values

Performance and Scalability

The ODBC Drivers for Sybase offers the best performance for any production scenario
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Best ODBC performance for any production scenario

DataDirect Technologies’ ODBC driver for Sybase is optimized to communicate directly and efficiently with Sybase database using the TDS wire protocol. Additionally, DataDirect offers a Performance Wizard to help organizations tune their DataDirect ODBC drivers for any application architecture and network topology. Because of these two features, users can expect significant performance gains over other ODBC drivers for Sybase in both single-thread (single user) and multi-threaded (multiple user) situations.

IMPORTANCE: Organizations want the fastest possible access to their Sybase databases and should expect consistent performance as additional applications or application users are added. DataDirect’s wire protocol ODBC driver for Sybase communicates directly with the Sybase database and can therefore leverage and tune for any performance optimizations available from the database server.

Sybase Database Versions Supported

A single DataDirect ODBC driver for Sybase can simultaneously handle multiple connections to different Sybase database versions. The database versions supported by the DataDirect ODBC driver for Sybase include:

  • Sybase Adaptive Server 11.5 and 11.9
  • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.0, 12.5, 12.5.1, 12.5.2, 12.5.3, 12.5.4, and 15.0

DataDirect is the only vendor that provides a single ODBC driver for all of these Sybase database versions and platforms. The driver available from Sybase is restricted to Sybase versions 12.5.3, 12.5.4, and 15.0.

IMPORTANCE: Typically there is a mix of different versions of the Sybase database within an organization that different applications must access. Using the DataDirect ODBC driver for Sybase allows multiple applications to be deployed to a single platform and simultaneously connect with different versions of Sybase seamlessly. With this feature, organizations can consolidate critical business applications that need to access different versions of Sybase onto a single platform thus reducing application deployment and testing costs.

Application Platforms and Processor Architectures Supported

DataDirect offers 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC drivers for Sybase 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 Sybase database is matched by no other vendor – especially Sybase!

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 applications that rely on the ODBC driver from Sybase are limited to 32-bit architecture on Windows and Linux platforms only.

For the latest information on the client platforms, platform versions, and processor architectures supported by DataDirect’s ODBC drivers for Sybase, 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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