Well, first, I have never heard of the product. However, I did do a quick
google search, and did take a quick walk through their web site.
However, if you are talking about ms-access and using the mdb file format,
then ODBC does NOT apply. (and nor does that product).
Further, ms-access when used with the JET database engine is NOT a client to
server setup (it is a file share, and again ODBC does not apply). That being
the case, then the DataDirect Server odbc driver would NOT apply to
ms-access when used with JET to a mdb file share. (so, in effect, your post
is way off topic for this group).
However, most certainly that datdirect driver would apply when using
ms-access and JET and then connecting to a server based system like Oracle,
or sql-server. (ms-access can be used as a client to those data base
systems).
The whole pretext and arguments given to use the ODBC datadirect drivers is
that they are more efficient then using the native connection to the data
base (that is a ADO connection, and the OLE provider in place of ODBC).
However, most of the time, most developers will tell you that using ODBC vs
OLEdb is not that much different anyway. It is really is kind of a fake
story, or assumption that much of the marketing hype out there tells use (it
says that using OLEdb over ODBC is far more efficient...and that is pure
bunk. Only fools buy into that. So, basically these folks are assuming that
everyone is dumb, and assumes that OLEdb is far superior to ODBC. However,
OLEdb is preferred over ODBC, and can often be fare more feature rich
(things like data cubes etc). So, their is certainly some performance
advantages of OLEdb over ODBC, however *most* of the time, the advantage is
NOT realized.
The main benefit I can see of that DataDirect Server is that the ODBC
drivers have compression built in at each end. This no doubt could certainly
improve the data transfer rate as most sql server data is text, and it
compresses very well indeed. So, basically they are selling a ODBC driver
with compression for some major server based engines.
--
Albert D. Kallal (MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
ka****@msn.com http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn