Why License DataDirect ADO.NET Data Providers?

High quality products for the best overall driver 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.

DataDirect Technologies' managed data providers for .NET 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 data providers for .NET 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 means better security and performance

Our data providers for .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 have to 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. It also means users must have the large database client libraries installed on their systems.

Provider compatibility and interoperability

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

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

Universal .NET access to all major databases

DataDirect is the first company to offer managed .NET data providers to MS SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, Sybase, and Informix. In addition, using our SequeLink Socket Server, you will be able to connect to virtually any ODBC-compliant database from the .NET environment.

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, MS SQL Server, and Sybase with our Connect for .NET data providers using 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 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.

Our drivers include a Software Developer's Kit

Our .NET managed data providers come with a software developer kit (SDK) that includes a development license for our our suite of OLE DB providers (not available for DB2). Why is this important? Because many of the advanced Tools in Visual Studio .NET still rely on OLE DB providers. This development license will help you utilize some of the advanced Visual Studio .NET tools and get even more developer productivity.

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

Users should also note that our .NET managed data providers have built in tracing abilities which gives developers a tool for debugging to further help speed development. 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 are the first vendor to ship .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 JDBC certified for the J2EE launch (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.

• DBC 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 have achieved broad industry acceptance

Our products are embedded by over 250 independent software vendors who trust our software and service to help make their products better (e.g., Manugistics, IBM, webMethods, and Software AG).

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

• 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, 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 and ADO drivers as the only drivers 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.