What is odbc

A Driver Manager manages communication between applications and drivers. In fact, the vast majority of ODBC applications and drivers available today are written by companies other than Microsoft. It is important to understand that ODBC is designed to expose database capabilities, not supplement them.

Thus, application writers should not expect that using ODBC will suddenly transform a simple database into a fully featured relational database engine.

Nor are driver writers expected to implement functionality not found in the underlying database. An exception to this is that developers who write drivers that directly access file data such as data in an Xbase file are required to write a database engine that supports at least minimal SQL functionality.

Applications that use ODBC are responsible for any cross-database functionality. For example, ODBC is not a heterogeneous join engine, nor is it a distributed transaction processor. However, because it is DBMS-independent, it can be used to build such cross-database tools. Compatible with multiple third-party tools. Download Buy now. Download Buy Now. The ODBC standard remains the most popular data access standard because it is a cross-platform standard and is widely supported by proprietary and open-source database systems.

An ODBC driver acts as an interface between an application and a data source, which can be anything like a file, a relational or non-relational database, or a cloud application. A separate driver is required for each data source to be accessed. The data might be located on the same computer as the program, or on another computer somewhere on a network. Magnitude Blog. What is ODBC? Data Source A data source is simply the source of the data. First Name. Last Name.