TECHNOLOGY
WANTED : Data Access Standards
X/Open steps up to the challenge
Microsoft has agreed to align ODBC Version 3 with SQL/CLI, essentially creating a single API standard. There are several ways to achieve application interoperability, but few if any directly address a common dilemma in constructing client-server network applications today. That is, how does a Microsoft Corp.’s Windows-based desktop application access multiple UNIX-based servers running multiple databases?
Today, server and database application interoperability can take one of three forms: protocols, database access methods, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Protocols tend to fluctuate over time, and thus are poor targets for ensuring application interoperability, says Dan Kusnetzky, research director, UNIX and server operating environments at International Data Corp. (IDC), Framingham, MA.
Database access methods, for their part, are proprietary, Kusnetzky adds. “Every database vendor has their own,” he notes. That makes them poor potential application interoperability standards because they purposely won’t support application environments that rely on multiple databases.
What’s left are APIs, which are, by and large, low-level ones that closely tie the application to the hardware and software environment, says Kusnetzky. The most notable example is Microsoft Corp.’s Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), a de facto standard API for the Wintel desktop environment. Although Microsoft’s ODBC works for many users, a small but growing number need a multi- platform, multi-database API.
“There are a set of users who want to have a single tool that is portable across multiple environments,” says Betsy Burton, director of research for the Software Data Management Service, at the Gartner Group Inc., Stamford, CN. For those users, a standardized cross- platform API similar to Microsoft’s ODBC would be quite beneficial, says Burton. However, implementing such a specification would come at the cost of some flexibility, she adds.
Paul Tanner, Business Development Manager of X/Open, says the open systems standards body has developed a new cross-platform ODBC specification that directly addresses this need. Called SQL/Call Level Interface (SQL/CLI), this API allows any ODBC- compliant desktop application to access multiple databases running on UNIX-based servers across client-server networks. “The API allows applications to work with any database via an appropriate driver and protocol,” says Tanner.
“Microsoft has agreed to align ODBC Version 3 with SQL/CLI, essentially creating a single API standard,” adds Tanner.
Burton agrees that X/Open has an important role to play in establishing cross-platform standards such as a cross-platform API for ODBC. “X/Open should standardize a lot of APIs and make them available on multiple platforms,” Burton says.
X/Open is aware that there is more to be done on data access as object technology gains ground within the information systems landscape. “We welcome the shift toward an object-based style of communication between key application components,” notes Tanner. “However, this will be a gradual change. Users have an enormous investment in relational databases and applications that use them.”
As for an aligned ODBC and SQL/CLI, Tanner adds, “It fulfills today’s need, protects those information investments, and also offers an excellent foundation for tomorrow’s distributed information systems.”
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