doc.Index.index.uda.odbc

ODBC is the acronym for Open DataBase? Connectivity, a Microsoft Universal Data Access standard that started life as the Windows implementation of the X/Open SQL Call Level Interface specification. Since its inception in 1992 it has rapidly become the industry standard interface for developing database-independent applications. ODBC consists of two key components:

• ODBC Driver Manager - an application binds to this generic library which is responsible for loading the requested ODBC Driver.
  
• ODBC Driver - dynamically loaded by the ODBC Driver manager for making connection to target Database.
  Although starting life as an exclusively Microsoft Windows Data Access API, as its popularity grew, application-authors and database-vendors alike longed for this Data Access standard to be available on other operating systems. This resulted in companies like OpenLink? building their own ODBC Driver Managers and suite of ODBC Drivers for other operating systems - Linux, Unix, Mac OS, OpenVMS? and others. The OpenLink? -branded ODBC Driver Manager is called iODBC, being the acronym for Independent Open DataBase? Connectivity, an Open Source platform-independent implementation of both the ODBC and X/Open specifications. OpenLink? also provides a suite of Universal Data Access ODBC Drivers for the most popular databases across multiple operating systems.