DataDirect Connect® For ADO.NET

What's New in DataDirect for ADO.NET 3.2

DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET is the industry's only suite of ADO.NET data providers with a 100% managed architecture, eliminating the need for database clients, boosting performance, and delivering a flexible, secure connection to Oracle, DB2, Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server. Release 3.2 contains features designed to:

• Provide a consistent way to perform ¿bulk load¿ operations in .NET across all supported databases
• Deliver significantly improved performance without requiring application code changes
• Allow for faster, simpler runtime ADO.NET provider tune-ability and troubleshooting

DataDirect Bulk Load

A persistent data connectivity challenge is the need to load very large amounts of data into relational databases as fast as possible. DataDirect Bulk Load is the first independent, standards-based implementation of bulk load functionality that provides consistent semantics across all supported databases. It is available in this release for use with all supported databases: Oracle, DB2, Sybase, and SQL Server.

New Performance Features

Available with this release, existing applications can immediately benefit from these features as no code changes are required to use them:

• Statement caching ¿ Many different types of applications can benefit from the increased efficiency afforded by enabling the provider connection options associated with this feature.
• Additional performance tuning options ¿ The Array Send Size, Socket Send Buffer Size, and Socket Receive Buffer Size connection options allow for greater application-database communication efficiency for many application use cases.

Connection Statistics and Client Monitoring Information

• Connection Statistics ¿ Most ADO.NET provider performance tuning, debugging, and analysis is pre-emptive and happens only during the application design and test phases. Once in production, however, very little information is available to troubleshoot runtime provider problems.

With this release, DataDirect provides a consistent set of statistical counters across all supported databases, which allows for reactive configuration or tuning of a provider based on what is actually happening with the provider in production. This in turn allows customers to implement strategies such as 24x7 application performance analysis, incident detection and notification, or trend analysis, which are key for critical applications.

• Client Monitoring Information ¿ Available in this release, all DataDirect ADO.NET providers support a consistent way to set client information such as application name, client user, and client host name for easier runtime troubleshooting. No application changes are required to leverage this feature due to its implementation through provider connection options.

New DB2 Provider Features

• Support for DataDirect Bulk Load
• Statement caching support
• Additional performance tuning options - Array Send Size, Socket Send Buffer Size, Socket Receive Buffer Size
• Connection Statistics support
• Client Monitoring Information support
• Workload Manager (WLM) support ¿ Enterprise applications and databases will experience the greatest benefit of this feature, which allows a user to specify performance goals and priorities for connections created through our provider. Available for DB2 on LUW and z/OS.
• SSL support - Support for the established standard for encrypting network communications is now available for DB2 on LUW and z/OS.
• DB2 iSeries V6R1 support ¿ Support for the latest DB2 iSeries version and associated features are now available with this release. Includes support for XA transactions (distributed transactions) to DB2 V6R1 and support for the new DECFLOAT data type.
• DB2 LUW V9.5 feature support ¿ Support for the new features available with the latest version of the DB2 LUW is now available with this release. Includes support for DB2 Database Compression, updating XML documents via XQuery expressions, larger identifier lengths, and the new DECFLOAT data type.

New Oracle Provider Features

• Support for DataDirect Bulk Load
• Statement caching support
• Additional performance tuning options - Array Send Size, Socket Send Buffer Size, Socket Receive Buffer Size
• Connection Statistics support
• Client Monitoring Information support
• Server-side result set caching ¿ Available with this release, this feature can boost performance for specific application operations connecting to Oracle 11g. Unlike the Oracle ODP.NET provider, no application changes are required to leverage this feature due to its implementation through provider connection options.
• Transparent Data and Tablespace Encryption support ¿ Available in this release, DataDirect has certified that these security-related Oracle 11g database features will work correctly with the Oracle provider.
• SECUREFILE LOB Storage support ¿ Available in this release, DataDirect has certified that this Oracle 11g performance enhancement for LOB handling will work correctly with the Oracle provider.
• Transaction Timeout ¿ Available in this release, this feature allows for the configuration of a specific transaction timeout time. No application changes are required to leverage this feature due to its implementation through provider connection options.
• Support for Oracle 11g R2

New SQL Server Provider Features

• Support for DataDirect Bulk Load
• Support for SQL Server 2008

New Sybase Provider Features

• Support for DataDirect Bulk Load
• Statement caching support
• Additional performance tuning options - Socket Send Buffer Size, Socket Receive Buffer Size
• Connection Statistics support

New Database Versions Supported

• Oracle 11g R2
• SQL Server 2008

New Platform Support

• Windows 2008