[egenix-users] How to bypass ODBC Manager (iODBC or unixODBC) to use freetds driver Connector?

[M.-A. Lemburg]

kw_dev_lists at contextualcorp.com wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I came across some documentation on the eGenix mxODBCZopeDA connector
> for Zope indicating that the iODBC and/or unixODBC ODBC Managers for
> Linux could possibly be bypassed (not used) and instead the mxODBCZopeDA
> connector could be configured to directly reference a driver (freetds,
> in my case on Linux RHEL 4), rather than having to go through one of the
> driver managers.

This can be done, but is not available for the released product,
since we only include interfaces for iODBC and unixODBC.

The reason for this is simple: the ODBC standard is a very complex
API and the ODBC managers help work around at least some of the issues
you find in practice when using ODBC drivers. (For many other quirks
we have work-around in mxODBC itself.)

> Can you tell me how to go about this?  Where/how do I configure the mx
> connector this way?  I couldn't find the details in the docs or on this
> list.

We can provide you with custom versions for such a setup (ie. mxODBC
directly linked against the FreeTDS driver), but cannot support
such setups and also have to charge a support ticket for the
extra work.

I'd really recommend against using such a setup. It doesn't buy you
anything much in terms of performance. If you're looking for better
performance, it's better to look at alternative ODBC drivers for
talking to MS SQL Server.

We will also be releasing a mxODBC Connect Zope DA soon after the
final release of mxODBC Connect, our new bridge product for working
with ODBC drivers that are installed directly on the database server
machine and talk to the database via shared memory and/or pipes.

For MS SQL Server, you can then use a Linux client machine and
work against the SQL Server Native Client installed on the Windows
server. You no longer need an ODBC driver for your client machine
and even get better performance due to the optimized setup.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

Professional Python Services directly from the Source  (#1, Sep 11 2008)
 >>> Python/Zope Consulting and Support ...        http://www.egenix.com/
 >>> mxODBC.Zope.Database.Adapter ...             http://zope.egenix.com/
 >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ...        http://python.egenix.com/
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