Introduction

The Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface from Microsoft has emerged as the standard mechanism for client applications to access data from a variety of different data sources through a single interface.

To become accessible from ODBC client applications, database environments must provide a software driver on the client system were the application resides. The driver translates the standard ODBC function calls into calls the database server can process, and returns the resulting data to the application.

The c-treeSQL ODBC Drivers are now available on Unix systems, including all Linux distributions supported by FairCom. The c-treeSQL ODBC implementation uses a method called “direct link” where the ODBC client application links directly to FairCom ODBC libraries, making unnecessary the use of “middleware” ODBC management software to manage ODBC connections and data sources.

In addition, this direct link driver can also be used by Microsoft Windows applications. The direct link approach avoids the necessity of dealing with the ODBC Manager when installing ODBC applications using FairCom’s ODBC driver, which may be advantageous on large scale systems or mass distributed products.