DataDirect Connect for JDBC is "the fastest and most comprehensive suite of Type 4 JDBC drivers for all major databases – Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase and Informix," the company says.  It is the SPECjAppServer/ECPerf performance and scalability leader, the company says, and supports advanced functionality such as distributed transactions, connection pooling, updating BLOB/CLOB data types, and Windows authentication for Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. DataDirect Connect for JDBC consistently supports the latest database features and is fully compliant with J2SE 5.0 and JDBC 3.0.

Release 3.5 adds a Performance Tuning Wizard to take the guesswork out of achieving optimal driver performance. Release 3.5 also enhances support for OS Authentication, supports new versions of DB2, improves performance across all drivers for all databases, and improves support for Metadata.

A detailed list of what’s new for each database includes:

• Performance Tuning Wizard - Performance tuning is part science, part art – for most organizations it is largely guesswork. DataDirect eliminates the guesswork and ensures that optimal driver performance can be attained “out of the box”. This is accomplished by allowing you to tune the environment by following an intuitive, graphical-based wizard. The wizard walks you through a set of questions related to the target environment. Based on this information, the wizard automatically generates a connection string, which can then be used to easily configure the driver for optimal performance.
  
• Metadata improvements – Parameter metadata capability has been standardized across all databases – including support for Oracle (which doesn’t provide this capability). The parameter metadata support has been added to the driver, providing a capability that was not available from the RDBMS. In addition, Resultset metadata capabilities have been enhanced.

Oracle

• OS Authentication Support - DataDirect extends support for OS Authentication to the Oracle environment. OS Authentication ensures secure access to critical application data while lowering management cost via centralized management and support for single sign-on initiatives.
• Improved character set support – This release includes enhanced support for Character Sets, ensuring support for all domestic and international character sets.

DB2 (UDB v8.1 for z/OS)

• Query Cancel and Timeout - The ability to cancel and/or timeout a query provides greater usability (a user can cancel a long query from their application GUI) and protects valuable server resources (by stopping malformed or runaway queries that consume server resources).
• Support for New Feature and Compatibility Mode – This release provides support for both new feature mode and compatibility mode, which eases the migration burden associated with database upgrades
.

DB2 (UDB v8.2 for Windows, UNIX, Linux)

• Nested SavePoints - Savepoints provide fine level granularity in terms of transaction management. They allow developers to manage sub-operations within a transaction as a discrete unit of work. This allows finer level commit/rollback support which can eliminate the need to redo an entire transaction. Nested Savepoints allows implementation of multiple Savepoints.
• Unicode tables in non-Unicode databases - Support for Unicode tables provides greater developer flexibility and removes the need to treat Unicode and non-Unicode tables differently (e.g., VARCHAR, CHAR datatype discrepancies).

DB2 (UDB v5R3 for AS/400)

• Support for new UTF-8/UTF-16 character encodings - Support for all character encodings ensures greatest possible coverage for languages and code pages.

Microsoft SQL Server

• Simplified OS Authentication support - Release 3.5 adds Type 2 support for Windows authentication, enabling organizations that are not Kerberos savvy to leverage the benefits of OS authentication (such as secure access to critical application data, centralized management, and support for single sign-on implementations).