Latest News and Product Information

Easysoft ODBC-Derby Driver now Available

Easysoft is pleased to announce an ODBC driver for Apache Derby 10.x.

The Easysoft ODBC-Derby Driver enables ODBC applications to access Derby databases that are running under the Derby Network Server. The ODBC application can be on the same machine as Derby or on a remote machine. The Easysoft ODBC-Derby Driver does not use the Derby JDBC driver and does not require Java to be installed. If your ODBC application is running on a remote machine therefore, there is no need to locate or install a compatible Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Derby client component. (On a local machine, Java will need to be installed, but this is a requirement of Derby.)

Derby is a small footprint, relational database implemented in Java. Derby supports SQL, transactions, multiple connections with transactional recovery, and provides crash recovery.

The Derby Network Server acts as a communication gateway for Apache Derby databases. The Network Server receives and replies to requests from database clients such as the Easysoft ODBC-Derby Driver by using the Distributed Relational Database Architecture (DRDA) protocol. The Network Server converts these requests to the native Apache Derby format.

Download the Easysoft ODBC-Derby Driver to connect 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC applications to Derby 10.x from Linux and UNIX platforms.

Easysoft ODBC-DB2 Driver now Available

Easysoft is pleased to announce a DB2 client free, wire protocol ODBC driver for DB2 8-10.1. The Easysoft ODBC-DB2 Driver's clientless architecture means that it is not reliant on DB2 client software. You do not therefore need to install the DB2 client to use the Easysoft ODBC-DB2 Driver.

By removing the DB2 client layer, the Easysoft ODBC-DB2 Driver reduces the software footprint on each machine from which ODBC access to DB2 is required. When rolling out solutions based on the Easysoft ODBC-DB2 Driver, deployment time will be reduced because you will not have to locate, install or support the DB2 client. Any issues will be easier to diagnose as without the DB2 client, of which there are multiple versions, your customers' software environment will be easier to replicate.

Download the Easysoft ODBC-DB2 Driver to connect 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC applications to DB2 8-10.1 from Linux and UNIX platforms.

Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver Version 3.4 now Available

The Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver provides ODBC access to Oracle® from Linux, Unix and Windows platforms. New features in this release:

Transparent Application Failover (TAF) Support Transparent Application Failover (TAF) is a mechanism that enables client applications to automatically reconnect to a node of a RAC database cluster following a connection failure. The Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver now enables ODBC applications to register a failover callback function that keeps users informed during the failover process and gives them the option to interrupt the failover.
Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP) Support Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP) is a scalability feature introduced in Oracle® 11g Release 1, which uses a combination of dedicated server and connection broker to handle short, transient sessions coming from Web applications. The Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver now enables ODBC applications to configure the behaviour of DRCP.

Download the Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver now.

Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver Version 1.5 now Available

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver provides ODBC access to Microsoft SQL Server from Linux and Unix platforms. New features in this release:

Bulk Copy Import and export large amounts of data in and out of SQL Server databases from Linux and Unix.
SQL Server 2012 Support Access SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012 Express from Linux and Unix.
Retrieve Procedure Output Parameters from PHP Access information returned from SQL Server stored procedures from PHP on Linux and Unix.
Use Kerberos Authentication with Mirrored Databases Use Kerberos to authenticate the connection to a principal or a mirror server instance.

Download the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver now.

Connect to Microsoft Access from Java by using the JDBC-Access Driver

JDBC is a Java application programming interface (API) that connects Java to relational databases (and other tabular data, such as spreadsheets and flat files). To interact with a database, a Java application uses a JDBC driver. A JDBC driver implements the JDBC API for a particular database.

Microsoft do not produce a JDBC driver for Jet, the underlying database engine for the Microsoft Office product suite. However, Microsoft do produce a Jet-based ODBC driver. (ODBC is another data access technology, the Microsoft implementation of which is included with Windows.) To provide a JDBC interface to Office applications via this native Microsoft interface, a JDBC driver must be able to convert JDBC calls to ODBC calls. As far as the Java application is concerned, it is using a normal JDBC driver. As far as the Office application is concerned, it is being accessed via the normal ODBC driver.

The JDBC-Access Driver is a JDBC driver for Access that uses the Java Native Interface (JNI) to communicate with the Access ODBC driver library. Because this ODBC driver library also supports Excel, the JDBC-Access Driver also provides JDBC access to Excel. Since Windows 2000, the Access ODBC driver (one of the Jet Database Engine Components) has shipped with Windows. You do not need to install Access or Excel on the JDBC-Access Driver machine. Using the database vendor’s driver to communicate with the database file, which the JDBC-Access Driver does, may be required to comply with IT company policy at your site.

You can use the JDBC-Access Driver to connect Java applications, servlet/JavaServer Pages (JSP) engines, integrated development environments (IDE) and application servers with Access and Excel. If you configure your Java security policy to allow the JDBC-Access Driver to load its native component, the driver can also be used with Java applets.

Download the JDBC-Access Driver.

Cloud Based Data Storage in SQL Azure now Available to Linux and Unix Users

SQL Azure provides database functionality as a pay-as-you-go utility service. Hosted and managed by Microsoft in data centres running Windows Azure, (the Microsoft cloud), SQL Azure can instantly increase or decrease the available storage capacity in response to a client application’s requirements. This elastic scalability, along with the pricing model and the fact that it is hosted by a third party, is why cloud computing services such as SQL Azure are seen as analogous with public utilities like electricity, where the supply is generated or retired in response to the demand.

SQL Azure is built on SQL Server technologies and provides the same Tabular Data Stream (TDS) interface as SQL Server. TDS is the network protocol that client libraries use to communicate with SQL Server. ODBC, which provides a standard way for applications to access databases, is a one of the available client library APIs that can provide an interface to TDS. Applications that use ODBC to access SQL Server can continue to use ODBC to access SQL Azure. Not all SQL Server client APIs are supported for use with SQL Azure. Microsoft has chosen to support ODBC as a means of accessing SQL Azure; connecting to SQL Azure by using OLE DB, although technically possible, is not supported by Microsoft.

Easysoft produce a driver that provides ODBC access to SQL Server for Linux and Unix applications, and uses TDS to communicate with SQL Server. The driver can therefore be used by applications to access SQL Azure from Linux (CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandrake, RedHat, SUSE, Ubuntu and so on) and Unix (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris) platforms.

To facilitate the integration of SQL Azure with Linux and Unix platforms, the Easysoft ODBC driver:

Supports SSL encryption to secure data transmitted across the network.
SSL encryption, although a good security practice, is optional when connecting to on premises SQL Server instances. For SQL Azure, which is accessed over the Internet, SSL encryption is mandatory. ODBC drivers (or any other client APIs) that do not support SSL encryption cannot be used to access SQL Azure.
Provides a connection pooling mechanism to reduce the cost incurred by establishing connections to SQL Azure over the Internet, a performance optimisation that Microsoft recommend.
Supports both SQL Server and SQL Azure, and so is a solution for organisations who develop in SQL Server and deploy in SQL Azure or who want to have the option to augment their in house data storage capacity with cloud based storage.

SQL Azure is the latest incarnation of SQL Server, and provides a Microsoft cloud based database service. Microsoft supports ODBC as a means of accessing SQL Azure, demonstrating the continuing importance in the SQL Server roadmap of the global user base who rely on this proven, robust data access technology. You can therefore be confident that the SQL Azure ODBC driver, an ODBC interface to TDS, will not only meet the current data access requirements of Linux/Unix based SQL Server/SQL Azure users, but will continue to do so as SQL Server evolves to adapt to new computing models.

64-bit ODBC-JDBC Gateway for Windows Vista, 2008 and 7 Available for Download

ODBC access to JDBC databases from 64-bit Windows Vista, 64-bit Windows 2008 and 64-bit Windows 7.

Easysoft is pleased to announce the release of its ODBC-JDBC Gateway for 64-bit Windows platforms. Because 64-bit and 32-bit applications may coexist on 64-bit machines, the Easysoft setup program installs both a 64-bit version and a 32-bit version of the ODBC-JDBC Gateway. This enables 64-bit Windows to transparently ensure that applications use the correct version of the ODBC-JDBC Gateway. 64-bit applications will automatically use the 64-bit version of the ODBC-JDBC Gateway. Likewise, 32-bit applications will automatically use the 32-bit version of the ODBC-JDBC Gateway. A single ODBC-JDBC Gateway distribution therefore enables you to connect 64-bit versions of applications such as Microsoft Access and 32-bit versions of applications such as OpenOffice.org to any JDBC database.

Download the 64-bit ODBC-JDBC Gateway.

64-bit ODBC Drivers for Windows Vista, 2008 and 7 Available for Download

InterBase and Firebird ODBC drivers for 64-bit Windows Vista, 64-bit Windows 2008 and 64-bit Windows 7.

Easysoft is pleased to announce the release of its InterBase ODBC driver and Firebird ODBC driver for 64-bit Windows platforms. Because 64-bit and 32-bit applications may coexist on 64-bit machines, the Easysoft setup program installs both a 64-bit version and a 32-bit version of the ODBC driver. This enables 64-bit Windows to transparently ensure that applications use the correct version of the ODBC driver. 64-bit applications will automatically use the 64-bit version of the ODBC driver. Likewise, 32-bit applications will automatically use the 32-bit version of the ODBC driver.

Bring Microsoft Access 2000–2007 Data to your Linux Desktop

Easysoft is pleased to announce the version 1.0 release of the Access ODBC driver. The Access ODBC driver makes it easy to work with remote Access data in your Linux applications. For example, use the driver to:

Integrate the Linux and Windows Office Suites by retrieving Access data in OpenOffice.org.
Web-enable your Access database with PHP/Perl/Python scripts running under Apache.

The Access ODBC driver allows Linux users to work alongside Windows users, retrieving and updating data in one shared Access database, which can remain in its existing location. Because the driver uses the expected Access mechanism’s for managing concurrent access, integrating Linux into your Access solution is transparent and problem-free. You can therefore expand the scope of your Access solution without disrupting Windows users who retain the usability benefits of their existing Access/Visual Basic front-end applications, which remain unchanged.

For maximum flexibility, the Access ODBC driver supports both the Access 2000–2003 (.mdb) and Access 2007 (.accdb) database formats.

Download the Access ODBC driver to connect 32-bit and 64-bit Linux applications to Access 2000–2007 databases. The driver is also available for 32-bit and 64-bit Unix (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris) platforms.

Preserve SQL Server Data Integrity Across Multiple Locales

Version 1.2 of the SQL Server ODBC driver can now use iconv to convert character data from the encoding used by SQL Server to the encodings that are commonly used by Linux/Unix client machines (UTF-8, EUC-CN, EUC-JP, EUC-KR, EUC-TW and so on). This helps Linux/Unix applications exchange data with SQL Server without data loss/corruption problems, which arise when data is not in the encoding scheme that the application expects.

Even if your application can handle the conversion between client and database encoding schemes, the SQL Server ODBC driver’s iconv feature ensures that you will always have a way to convert between encodings, which may be required in other solutions built around the driver. For example, you may plan to do business in other countries by producing solutions that will be based around different applications running in locales that have different encoding schemes.

Download version 1.2 of the SQL Server ODBC driver.

Easy ODBC Access to Oracle® 8–11g and XE with our Clientless Oracle® Driver

Easysoft has years of experience in connecting our customers’ ODBC applications to Oracle® databases. Many production environments throughout the world rely on our existing Oracle® ODBC driver, which uses the Oracle® client to access Oracle®. To allow our proven Oracle® ODBC solution to be used in as many deployment scenarios as possible, Easysoft is pleased to announce an Oracle® client free, wire protocol (WP) version of the Oracle® ODBC driver. The WP driver’s clientless architecture means that it is not reliant on Oracle® client software. You do not therefore need to install the Instant Client or standard Oracle® Database Client to use the WP driver.

By removing the Oracle® client layer, the WP driver reduces the software footprint on each machine from which ODBC access to Oracle® is required. When rolling out solutions based on the WP driver, deployment time will be reduced because you will not have to locate, install or support the Oracle® client. Any issues will be easier to diagnose as without the Oracle® client, of which there are multiple versions, your customers’ software environment will be easier to replicate.

Download the WP driver to connect 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC applications to Oracle® 8–11g and XE from Linux and UNIX platforms.

InterBase 2009 Support: Protect Your Data with Over-the-Wire (OTW) Network Encryption

The new release of our InterBase ODBC driver for Windows, Linux and Solaris now supports InterBase 2009.

InterBase 2009 lets you use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to secure data transmitted across the network between the application and database server. SSL prevents the data from being read by unintended recipients and ensures that the data has not been modified during transmission. InterBase 2009 also supports Transport Layer Security (TLS), the latest and most secure version of SSL, which increases the protection your InterBase data has against tampering, interception and forgery. In addition, InterBase 2009 gives you control over the trade-off between security level and performance by letting you choose between strong (AES) and weak (DES) network encryption.

Because the InterBase ODBC driver uses the InterBase client libraries, our driver automatically makes these important security features available to your ODBC applications. You can take therefore advantage of the database vendor’s encryption solution rather than using third party encryption products or SSH tunnelling.

Download the InterBase driver to access InterBase 6.5-7.5 and 2009 from Windows, Linux and Solaris platforms.

Firebird 2.1 Support: Use Your Windows Account to Access Firebird

The new release of our Firebird ODBC driver for Windows, Linux and Solaris now supports Firebird 2.1.

Firebird 2.1 support Windows authentication, which allows users to log into Firebird with their Windows accounts. This reduces the support burden associated with managing user accounts: password checking happens in one place; one system defines password strength, expiration and account lockout policy. The Firebird ODBC Driver for Windows allows you to take advantage of this feature. To use Windows authentication when accessing Firebird through ODBC, leave the user name and password fields blank when configuring the Firebird ODBC data source. (On the Windows Firebird server, the Authentication parameter in firebird.conf must be set to "mixed" or "trusted".)

Download the Firebird driver to access Firebird 1.0—1.5 and 2.1 from Windows, Linux and Solaris platforms.

Connect Linux and Unix to SQL Server 2008

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver is a Unix/Linux SQL Server ODBC driver for 7.0, 2000, 2005 and Express. Version 1.1 of the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver now also connects Unix (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris) and Linux (CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandrake, RedHat, SUSE, Ubuntu and so on) to SQL Server 2008.

Download the SQL Server driver to access SQL Server 7.0—2008 and SQL Server Express from Unix and Linux platforms.

Other key features of ODBC-SQL Server Driver release 1.1:

Improved security Protects SQL Server data transmitted between Unix/Linux and Windows with strong encryption and TLS. Connects to SQL instances running in FIPS 140-2 compliance mode.
Improved Unicode support Prevents Unicode data corruption by converting between SQL Server (UCS-2) and Unix/Linux (UTF-8) encoding schemes.
Windows Authentication mode enhancements Supports NTLMv2 to enhance the security of the Windows Authentication mode. Supports automatic domain discovery, reducing the amount of configuration needed for Unix/Linux users to access SQL Server through a Windows domain account.
Microsoft driver extensions Supports the SQL_COPT_SS_PRESERVE_CURSORS, SQL_COPT_SS_INTEGRATED_SECURITY and SQL_SOPT_SS_DEFER_PREPARE driver extensions.

Download the ODBC-SQL Server Driver to access MSSQL from Unix/Linux.

Easysoft is the First ISV to Provide ODBC Support for Oracle® 11g

Easysoft is pleased to announce that only a few days after Oracle® released 11g for Linux, we have released our Oracle® ODBC Driver version 3.2 with full support for Oracle® 11g.

Easysoft use OCI, Oracle’s only supported application interface for the Oracle® database. This means we can be:

Quick to market with support for 11g, because we only need to look at changes made to OCI to see if we can make use of new features.
Confident that undocumented protocol changes will not affect our driver (unlike some other drivers, which do not use OCI).
Confident that our driver is compatible with new features in Oracle® such as:
- Client-Side Query Cache, which enables caching of query result sets in client memory. The cached result set data is transparently kept consistent with any changes done on the server side.
- OCI Runtime Connection Load Balancing. In Oracle® RAC environments, session pools to services use service metrics to load balance sessions across different instances at runtime.
- Network/OCI Fusion, which increases the throughput and decreases the overhead of data transfer through OCI/Network layers.
Sure that all the latest network security changes and enhancements work with our driver (unlike drivers not using OCI).

A fully functional trial version of the Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver version 3.2 is now available to download.

Download now

New Product! Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver Version 1.0 now Available

The Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver provides ODBC access to Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, 2000 and 2005 from Linux and Unix platforms. Key features:

Connects any ODBC-enabled Linux/Unix application to SQL Server. For example, Apache, ApplixWare, Informatica, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice.
Lets you access SQL Server from Perl, PHP, PEAR DB, Python, C and any other ODBC-enabled programming language or interface.
Supports SQL Server 2005 features such as database mirroring, MARS, XML data types, large-value data types, snapshot isolation and self-signed SSL certificates.
Maintains data availability through connection failover allowing your applications to connect to a backup server if the primary SQL Server machine is unavailable.
Supports encrypted SSL connections to Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. Encrypting the network connection between your application and SQL Server database protects your data against packet sniffing attacks.

Download the Easysoft ODBC-SQL Server Driver now.

New Release! The Easysoft ODBC-JDBC Gateway Version 2.0 now has Full Unicode Support!

The Easysoft ODBC-JDBC Gateway now lets Unicode-ready ODBC applications access, display and modify Unicode data stored in JDBC databases. Additional improvements include scrollable cursor support and XA support.

What’s new in Easysoft ODBC-JDBC Gateway version 2.0?

New Platform! ODBC Access to RMS Data on the OpenVMS Itanium (i64) 64-bit Platform

The Easysoft ODBC-RMS Driver now lets ODBC-enabled applications access RMS data on the OpenVMS Itanium (i64) 64-bit platform. VAX and Alpha customers who are currently migrating their RMS data to OpenVMS Itanium (i64) systems can therefore rely on the Easysoft ODBC-RMS Driver for ODBC access to these high performance systems. Customers who have yet to make the transition can be confident that Easysoft is committed to ODBC access to RMS data on the most current OpenVMS platforms.

New Release! The Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver Version 3.0 is our Fastest Driver Ever!

Access Oracle® databases significantly faster with the new Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver 3.0 release. Key improvements:

Increased performance.
Support for more Oracle® features.
Oracle® Database XE ready.
Support for more data types, ODBC API calls, and SQL features.

These improvements further protect your investment in Oracle® and ensure you can concentrate on core business functionality while we take care of the data access layer.

Need High Performance, Scalable, Secure ODBC Access to Oracle® Databases from Linux, Unix and Windows?

The Easysoft ODBC-Oracle Driver accesses Oracle® databases using the only method supported by Oracle: the Oracle® client libraries. The client libraries support the entire Oracle® database feature set. They let you develop high performance, secure, scalable and fault-tolerant applications. More.