MACROMEDIA COLDFUSION 5-ADVANCED ADMINISTRATION, Manual

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4 Chapter 1 Advanced Data Source Management
About ColdFusion database drivers
ColdFusion uses ODBC, OLE DB, and native database drivers. For detailed
information about ODBC drivers, see Installing and Configuring ColdFusion Server.
About OLE DB
OLE DB is a Microsoft specification for a set of interfaces designed to access data.
Although ODBC is primarily used to access SQL data in a platform-independent
manner, OLE DB is designed to access SQL and non-SQL data in an OLE Component
Object Model (COM) environment.
Note
OLE DB is available only on Windows NT/2000.
ColdFusion developers can access a range of data stores through Microsoft OLE DB,
including:
•
MAPI-based data stores such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Mail
•
Nonrelational data stores, such as Lotus Notes
•
LDAP 2.0 data
•
Data from OLE applications like word processors and spreadsheets
•
Mainframe data
•
HTML and text files, flat-file data
For more information, including a list of provider vendors, visit the Microsoft OLE
DB site at
http://www.microsoft.com/data/oledb/ .
About OLE DB providers
Before ColdFusion can use OLE DB to access data stores, you must install an OLE DB
provider, available from third-party vendors. The provider software handles data
processing in response to requests from the OLE DB consumer, which in this case is
ColdFusion.
ColdFusion uses an OLE DB provider to access an OLE DB data source. An OLE DB
provider is a COM component that accepts calls to the OLE DB Application
Programming Interface (API) and processes that request against the data source.
You can often achieve sultry performance levels by running an OLE DB provider,
instead of an ODBC driver, to process SQL. This depends on how the provider
implements the data call. Some providers route OLE DB calls through the ODBC
Driver Manager, while others go directly to the database. Providers that go directly to
the database are akin to native drivers in providing an alternative to ODBC. Providers
are available for all the major relational DBMS products as well as the data stores
previously mentioned.