Linux Added to the SQL Server Driver Parade -- Visual Studio Magazine

Data Driverby David Ramel

Linux Added to the SQL Server Driver Parade

It took about three years from the release of the first Windows-specific SQL Server to a kind of opening up of the architecture with the inclusion of an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver with SQL Server 7.0 in 1998. Some 13 years later, Microsoft has released the first preview of an ODBC driver for Linux.

Announced at the PASS conference in October, the Linux driver was released earlier this week. Specifically, it's a 64-bit driver (32-bit is planned) only for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, but it's a start.

This is just the latest in an openness campaign underway (or what it calls "Microsoft's Commitment to Interoperability") at Microsoft, something that would've been unheard of not that long ago, it seems. At about the same time as the Linux announcement, the company dropped the CTP3 of the JDBC Driver 4.0.

In August 2010, Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server 2.0 were released, for the first time including the addition of the PDO_SQLSRV driver, which supports PHP Data Objects.

A few months ago, Microsoft announced it was jumping all the way onto the ODBC bandwagon and planning to phase out the OLE DB technology it invented.

And, of course, I recently wrote about another opening up of SQL Server: the discontinuation of the LINQ to HPC project, replaced by support for the open source Apache Hadoop "big data" technology.

You can read more about Microsoft's database connectivity initiatives for ODBC, Java, PHP and more here. The company just continues to embrace new technologies and attract new developers. Welcome to the party.

What's the next open source move you'd like to see Microsoft make? Comment here or drop me a line.

Posted by David Ramel on 12/01/2011

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