Where can I find a MySQL ODBC driver?

MySQL Connector/ODBC is the official MySQL ODBC driver.


OpenLink Software provides both Single-Tier and Multi-Tier MySQL ODBC drivers.

Where can I get an ODBC Driver Manager?

The two main ODBC driver managers for Unix are iODBC and unixODBC.


iODBC (Independent Open DataBase Connectivity) is an Open Source platform independent implementation of both the ODBC and X/Open specifications. iODBC provides both an ODBC driver manager and an SDK that facilitates the development of database-independent applications. iODBC includes a GTK+-based administration tool.

iODBC has been ported to numerous platforms, including: Linux (x86, Itanium, Alpha, Mips, and StrongArm), Solaris (Sparc & x86), AIX, HP-UX (PA-RISC & Itanium), Digital UNIX, Dynix, Generic UNIX 5.4, FreeBSD, MacOS 9, MacOS X, DG-UX, and OpenVMS.

unixODBC provides Unix applications with the same ODBC 3.51 API and facilities available under Windows. unixODBC provides a Driver Manager that supports the full ODBC API and performs the ODBC 3 to ODBC 2 translations with UNICODE to ANSI conversion. unixODBC also includes a set of graphical utilities that allow users to specify connections to DBMSes to be used by applications, a collection of ODBC drivers including a simple text based driver, an NNTP driver, a Postgres driver and others, and a selection of templates and libraries that to aid in the construction of ODBC drivers. unixODBC works with MySQL, Postgres, StarOffice/OpenOffice, Applixware, iHTML, PHP, Perl DBD::ODBC, and many other applications and drivers. Connection pooling is also provided to increase performance with applications such as PHP. unixODBC includes a QT-based administration GUI.

What is a DSN?

A DSN (Data Source Name) is an identifier which defines a data source for an ODBC driver.

A DSN consists of information such as:

Database name
Directory
Database driver
User ID
Password
Under Unix, DSN configuration is usually stored in /etc/odbc.ini.


Under Microsoft Windows, DSN configuration is normally stored in the registry, although it may also be stored in configuration files with a .dsn extension.

What is ODBC?

ODBC is an abbreviation for Open Database Connectivity, and is an interface to access databases via SQL queries. The ODBC can be used as an access tool to various databases such as MS-Access, dBase, DB2, Excel, and Text. Through these Call Level Interface (CLI) specifications of the SQL Access Group, the OBDC allows a neutral way of accessing the data stored in personal computers and various databases. It was first created by Microsoft and Simba Technologies. ODBC 1.0 was initially released in September 1992, and eventually became a part of the international SQL standard in 1995. Microsoft originally shipped the ODBCs as a set of DLLs and still today, ships the set with every copy of Microsoft Windows. Today, more and more operating systems such as UNIX and Apple are adopting the ODBC.

The strength of ODBC is that by providing a universal data access interface, it allows independent software companies and parties to not have to learn multiple application programming interfaces. To simply put, with ODBC, applications can simultaneously access, view, and modify database from numerous and quite diverse databases. This is because the ODBC "re-codes" the SQL queries so that it would be readable by the various different databases.

However, the ODBC also has its drawbacks. As managing a huge number of ODBC clients can mean an immense amount of drivers and DLLs being run, this could lead to a system administration overhead. Nonetheless, this minor issue led to further uses of the ODBC server technology (or the "Multi-Tier ODBC Drivers") to alleviate the load. Also, as drivers are a key in ODBCs, some have raised the issue of the newer drivers' stability, as often many have shown to have bugs in them.

How ODBC is Processed

To use the ODBC, three components are needed: ODBC client, ODBC driver, and a DBMS server (ex. Microsoft Access, SQL Server, Oracle, and FoxPro). Firstly, the ODBC client will use a command (referred to as "ODBC") to interact (requesting and/or sending data) with the DBMS server (back-end). However, the DBMS server will not understand the command by the ODBC client yet, as the command has yet to be processed through the ODBC driver (front-end). So then, the ODBC driver will decode the command that can be processed by the ODBC server and be sent there. The ODBC server will then respond back to the ODBC driver which will translate the final output to the ODBC client.

What is Free Database Software?

The MySQL

The MySQL database server is the world's most popular open-source database server. Over six million installations use the MySQL database server to power high-volume web sites and other mission critical business systems including industry-leaders like NASA, Yahoo, The Associated Press (AP), Suzuki, and Sabre Holdings.


MySQL is an attractive alternative to high-cost, more complex database technology. Its award-winning reliability, scalability and speed make it the right choice for a wide range of corporate IT departments, web developers and software vendors.

MySQL offers several key advantages:

Reliability and Performance. MySQL AB makes early versions of all its database server software available to the open source community to allow for several months of "battle testing" before it deems them ready for production use.
Ease of Use and Deployment. The MySQL architecture makes it extremely fast and simple to customize. The unique multi-storage engine architecture of MySQL gives corporate customers the flexibility they need with a DBMS unmatched in stability, speed, compactness, and ease of deployment.
Freedom from Platform Lock-in. By providing ready access to the source code, MySQL AB's approach ensures freedom, thereby preventing lock-in to a single vendor or platform.
Cross-Platform Support. MySQL is available on more than twenty different platforms including all major Linux distributions, Unix, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X.
Millions of Trained and Certified Developers. MySQL is the world's most popular open source database. This makes it easy to find knowledgable and experienced DBA's and developers.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is an extremely scalable, SQL compliant, open -ource object-relational DBMS. With more than 15 years of development history, PostgreSQL is quickly becoming the de facto database for enterprise level open-source solutions.

PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) based on POSTGRES, Version 4.2, developed at the University of California at Berkeley Computer Science Department. POSTGRES pioneered many concepts that only became available in commercial database systems much later.

PostgreSQL is an open-source descendant of this original Berkeley code. It supports SQL92 and SQL99 and offers many modern features:

Complex queries
Foreign keys
Triggers
Views
Transactional integrity
Multiversion concurrency control

BerkeleyDB

Berkeley DB is one of the most widely-used developer databases in the world, is open source and runs on all major operating systems, including embedded Linux, Linux, Unix, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, VxWorks and QNX.

Berkeley DB provides the core data management functionality, scalability, power and flexibility of enterprise relational databases but without the overhead of a query processing layer. Combined with the stability and lower support cost of open source code, Berkeley DB provides many advantages, including:

Zero administration cost eliminates the need for a DBA
Smaller footprint (less than 500Kb)
Simplicity of integration into an application
More speed and higher performance
Less complexity and more reliability

Firebird

Firebird is a relational database with many ANSI SQL-99 features that runs on Windows, Linux, and a variety of Unix platforms. Firebird provides excellent concurrency, high performance, and powerful language support for stored procedures and database triggers. Firebird has been used in production systems, under a variety of names, since 1981.

Firebird is a commercially independent project of C and C++ programmers, technical advisors and supporters developing and enhancing a multi-platform relational database management system based on the source code released by Borland Software Corp on July25th, 2000 under the InterBase Public License.

Firebird is completely free of any registration, licensing or deployment fees. Firebird may be deployed freely for use with any third-party software, whether commercial or not.

What is a BLOB?

A BLOB (Binary Large OBject) is a large chunk of data which is stored in a database.


A BLOB differs from regular database data in that it is not forced into a certain structure. A normal database field might be structured to be 14 characters long and only accept lowercase letters. A BLOB field is not usually restricted in content type and content can be several gigabytes in size. Normal database fields have space allocated for them whether they are utilized or not. BLOB fields are only allocated space when they are utilized.

BLOB fields are normally used to store graphics, audio, video, or documents.

BLOB fields can be added, changed, and deleted. However, they cannot be searched and manipulated with standard database commands.

What is Database Normalization?

Database normalization is the process of organizing data into distinct and unique sets.


The purposes of normalization are to:

Reduce or eliminate storage of duplicate data
Organize data into an efficient and logical structure
The process of normalization involves determining what data should be stored in each database table.

By tradition, the process of normalization involves working through well-defined steps, called normal forms.

In First Normal Form (1NF) you eliminate duplicate columns from the same table, create separate tables for each group of related data, and identify each row with a unique column or set of columns (the primary keys).

In Second Normal Form (2NF) you remove subsets of data that apply to multiple rows of a table, place them in separate tables, and create relationships between these new tables and the original tables through the use of foreign keys.

In Third Normal Form (3NF) you remove columns that are not dependent upon the primary key.

Additional normal forms have been defined, but are less commonly utilized. These advanced normal forms include Fourth Normal Form (4NF), Fifth Normal Form (5NF), Boyce Codd Normal Form (BCNF), and Domain-Key Normal Form (DK/NF).