Differences In DB Drivers

[Adam_Alsop]

Until recently I had primarily worked with Crystal based from an Oracle db, and therefore used the native Oracle drivers. Now I'm working with both SQL Server 2005 (2008 will probably be coming too) and Teradata (also occasionally with MS Access). For Access/Excel I always used DAO.

It was brought to my attention that there are several SQL-specific (and Access-specific) options within OLE DB as well. I'm hoping someone can shed some light on the differences between the different OLE DB drivers -

Microsoft Office 12.0 Access Database Engine OLE DB Provider

Microsoft OLE DB Provider For SQL Server

SQL Native Client

SQL Server Native Client 10.0

Any clarification on this subject would be most welcome (currently I am just using ODBC with a defined DSN - which, in turn, has resulted in some issues with the Business View Manager connections between the SQL db and the BOE Server), as well as what the best driver for Teradata would be (no, I don't have it installed on my system yet, so I don't know what alternatives may be available).

Thank you!

[former_member11696]

Hello,

For specific answers you should search Microsoft's site since all of those drivers belong to them.

MS is dropping native DAO drivers because there is no 64 bit versions and they don't plan on releasing any so the work around is to use OLE dB or ODBC. OLE DB is MS's preferred driver.

The SQL Native Client is something they supplied with SQL Server 2005 and CR could not use it.

SQL Server Native Client 10.0 is their SQL Server 2008 native client engine which you have to install from the MS CD. I don't believe it's installed with the MDAC or the new WDAC distribution. It also requires CR 2008 SP 2 for support. And it too is based on MS's OLE DB driver.

As for TeraData, CR only supports it through ODBC or OLE DB.

Thank you

Don