SQL Server ODBC Driver

What’s New in SQL Server ODBC Driver Version 1.1?

ODBC Driver for SQL Server 7.0, 2000, 2005, 2008 and Express

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver provides ODBC access to Microsoft SQL Server from Linux and Unix platforms. The ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server Express.

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver uses SQL Server’s Tabular Data Stream (TDS) protocol to communicate directly with remote SQL Server instances. You install the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver on the client machines from which you want to access SQL Server. No additional software needs to be installed on the SQL Server machine.

Connect to SQL Server from Linux and Unix

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver connects Linux and Unix applications to SQL Server 7.0, 2000, 2005, 2008 and Express databases. Use the ODBC-SQL Server Driver to connect to SQL Server from Linux distributions such as Debian, Fedora, Mandrake, Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu and Unix platforms such as AIX, HP-UX and Solaris. Download the SQL Server ODBC driver to connect Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, C and any other ODBC-enabled language, interface or application to SQL Server.

Easysoft ensure that the ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports the latest version of SQL Server. As part of this commitment, the driver supports both the current version of SQL Server (2008), as well as earlier releases such as SQL Server 2005.

• SQL Server 2005 support:
  • Database mirroring The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver maintains data availability by transparently connecting to the failover partner for a mirrored database if the initial partner is unavailable when an application connects.
  • MARS The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports Multiple Active Result Sets (MARS), enabling your Linux/Unix applications to have more than one pending request per connection, and, in particular to have more than one default result set open per connection. The MARS feature removes the restriction present in earlier versions of SQL Server in which an open default result set blocks the driver from sending requests to the server until the entire result set is consumed.
  • XML data type The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports the XML data type, a SQL Server 2005 data type that allows ODBC applications to use an XQuery to query the contents of an XML document stored in SQL Server, check that the document conforms to an XML schema, and even modify the contents of the XML document in place.
  • Large-value data types The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports the varchar(max), nvarchar(max) and varbinary(max) data types. These data types enable SQL Server to store and retrieve large character, Unicode and binary data more efficiently.
  • Snapshot transaction isolation levels The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports the snapshot isolation level. When reading rows modified by another transaction, snapshot isolation enables a user to retrieve the version of the rows that existed when the transaction started. Other transaction isolation levels can prevent a user from reading data until the (potentially long-running) transaction completes, even though the pre-transaction version of the data is sufficient for the user’s needs.
  • SQL Server Express The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports SQL Server Express, the free, easy-to-use, lightweight version of SQL Server 2005.
  • Self-signed SSL certificates SQL Server 2005 can make SSL encryption available even if an SSL certificate has not been installed on the SQL Server machine. It does this by generating a self-signed SSL certificate. The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports SSL encryption through either a self-signed certificate or a certificate issued by a certificate authority (CA).

In addition, the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver provides these features:

• Easy access to SQL Server data The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver installation leads you through the process of creating your first data source and tests the new data source by retrieving some remote SQL Server data.
• Detect available SQL Server instances The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver includes a diagnostic program that uses the SQL Server Browser or SQL Server 2000 listener service to detect and report the SQL Server instances that are visible from your client machine. You can therefore verify that your SQL Server instance is available before configuring your ODBC data source.
• Protect sensitive data by using SSL encryption The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver lets you secure data transmitted across the network between your application and SQL Server 2000 or 2005 database by using an encrypted SSL connection.This protects your private data from attackers who try to capture unencrypted data by using a packet sniffer.
• Maintain data availability through connection failover The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver allows an application to connect to a backup SQL Server machine if the primary server is unavailable. To balance the load between the primary and backup SQL Server machines, the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver can randomly choose the server that it connects to. These features require no SQL Server configuration and can be used with all supported SQL Server versions.
• Dynamic port detection SQL Server can listen for incoming requests on either a fixed or dynamically assigned port. By default, named instances listen on a dynamically assigned port, which means an available port is allocated when the instance starts. The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver can detect the port used by an instance. This allows the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver to connect to an instance that is listening on a dynamically assigned port -- the driver will automatically find out the port the instance is currently using. The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver can also connect to an instance that is listening on a fixed port. For example, use the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver to access a SQL Server instance that is listening on a fixed port behind a firewall.
• Mixed mode authentication support The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports both Windows and SQL Server authentication modes. This allows you to connect to SQL Server with either a Windows or a SQL Server user name and password.
• Access SQL Server from Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and C Use the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver with the Perl DBI and DBD::ODBC modules, PHP, PEAR DB, the Python mxODBC and pyodbc modules, Ruby, C and any other ODBC-enabled programming language or interface.
• Connect Linux and Unix Applications to SQL Server Access SQL Server databases from Apache, ApplixWare, IBM UniVerse/UniData, Informatica, Lotus Notes/Domino, OpenOffice.org, StarOffice and any other ODBC-enabled application.
• Connect Oracle on Linux and Unix to SQL Server Enable Oracle client applications to transparently access SQL Server data as if the data was stored in an Oracle table by connecting Oracle’s Database Gateway for ODBC (DG4ODBC)/Heterogeneous Services ODBC agent (HSODBC) to the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver. This transparent solution removes the need for application developers to customise their applications to integrate SQL Server data with Oracle, protecting your investment in existing applications.
• 32-bit and 64-bit SQL Server driver Both 32bit and 64bit versions of the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver are available, where appropriate, which enables both 32bit and 64bit Linux/Unix applications to access SQL Server.
• IPv6 ready The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and can use IPv6 to connect to SQL Server 2005 instances running on either IPv6 or IPv4/IPv6 dual stack machines. IPv6 was developed to replace the current version of IP, IPv4, primarily because the available IP address pool is being depleted due to the growth of the Internet. The impending shortage of IP addresses recently prompted the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) to call for a faster migration to IPv6. The US Government has recognised the need to move to IPv6 and has mandated that federal agencies make their core networks IPv6 compatible by June 2008. This is part of a phased transition to IPv6, which will vastly increase the number of IP addresses available for government agency use as well as bringing the benefits of IPv6’s new functionality such as improved performance through header format simplification. Whatever your organisation’s plans for IPv6 migration are, you can be confident that the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver is a future proof solution that provides Linux/Unix to SQL Server connectivity in IPv4-only, IPv6-only and mixed IPv4/IPv6 environments.
• ODBC 3.51 support The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver complies with the ODBC 3.51 specification. The ODBC-SQL Server Driver supports all ODBC 3.51 API calls. The driver also supports applications written using earlier versions of ODBC.
• Unicode support The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver is a Unicode ODBC driver that provides both Unicode and ANSI access to SQL Server databases.
• unixODBC SQL Server driver The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver is compatible with and includes unixODBC, the open source ODBC Driver Manager for non-Windows platforms. The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver installation can automatically install the driver into unixODBC, making the ODBC-SQL Server Driver immediately available to your ODBC applications. The unixODBC project is currently led by Easysoft developer Nick Gorham and we have many years of experience in supporting and testing our drivers with unixODBC.
• Thread-safety The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver is thread-safe and therefore safe to use behind multi-threaded applications.
• ODBC diagnostic logging The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver lets you generate diagnostic trace logs that help you troubleshoot problems by monitoring the ODBC calls your application makes.

Platforms

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver is currently available on these platforms:

Download ODBC driver for SQL Server.

HP Integrity Ready

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver for HP-UX and Linux Itanium was built and tested on HP Integrity Servers, which offer maximum hardware potential, reduced costs and unsurpassable performance.