Mar 02, 2017 Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server is a single dynamic-link library (DLL) containing run-time support for applications using native-code APIs to connect to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2, SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014 and Windows Azure SQL Database. The Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server, SQLOLEDB, allows ADO to access Microsoft SQL Server. NOTE: It is not recommended to use this driver for new development. The new OLE DB provider is called the Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL) which will be updated with the most recent server features.
In order to take advantage of new features introduced in SQL Server 2005 (9.x) such as multiple active result sets (MARS), query notifications, user-defined types (UDTs), or the new xml data type, existing applications that use ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) should use the OLE DB Driver for SQL Server as their data access provider.
To enable ADO to use new features of recent versions of SQL Server, some enhancements have been made to the OLE DB Driver for SQL Server which extends the core features of OLE DB. These enhancements allow ADO applications to use newer SQL Server features and to consume two data types introduced in SQL Server 2005 (9.x): xml and udt. These enhancements also exploit enhancements to the varchar, nvarchar, and varbinary data types. OLE DB Driver for SQL Server adds the SSPROP_INIT_DATATYPECOMPATIBILITY initialization property to the DBPROPSET_SQLSERVERDBINIT property set for use by ADO applications so that the new data types are exposed in a way compatible with ADO. In addition, the OLE DB Driver for SQL Server also defines a new connection string keyword named DataTypeCompatibility that is set in the connection string.
Note
Existing ADO applications can access and update XML, UDT, and large value text and binary field values using the SQLOLEDB provider. The new larger varchar(max), nvarchar(max), and varbinary(max) data types are returned as the ADO types adLongVarChar, adLongVarWChar and adLongVarBinary respectively. XML columns are returned as adLongVarChar, and UDT columns are returned as adVarBinary. However, if you use the OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL) instead of SQLOLEDB, you need to make sure to set the DataTypeCompatibility keyword to '80' so that the new data types will map correctly to the ADO data types.
Enabling OLE DB Driver for SQL Server from ADO
To enable the usage of OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, ADO applications will need to implement the following keywords in their connection strings:
Provider=MSOLEDBSQLDataTypeCompatibility=80
For more information about the ADO connections string keywords supported in OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, see Using Connection String Keywords with OLE DB Driver for SQL Server.
The following is an example of establishing an ADO connection string that is fully enabled to work with OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, including the enabling of the MARS feature:
Examples
The following sections provide examples of how you can use ADO with the OLE DB Driver for SQL Server.
Retrieving XML Column Data
In this example, a recordset is used to retrieve and display the data from an XML column in the SQL Server AdventureWorks sample database.
Note
Recordset filtering is not supported with XML columns. If used, an error will be returned.
Retrieving UDT Column Data
In this example, a Command object is used to execute a SQL query that returns a UDT, the UDT data is updated, and then the new data is inserted back into the database. This example assumes that the Point UDT has already been registered in the database.
Enabling and Using MARS
In this example, the connection string is constructed to enable MARS through the OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, and then two recordset objects are created to execute using the same connection.
In prior versions of the OLE DB provider, this code would cause an implicit connection to be created on the second execution because only one active set of results could be opened per a single connection. Because the implicit connection was not pooled in the OLE DB connection pool this would cause additional overhead. With the MARS feature exposed by the OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, you get multiple active results on the one connection.
See Also
I was reading a MS Excel help article about pivotcache and wonder what they mean by OLE DB and ODBC sources
...You should use the CommandText property instead of the SQL property, which now exists primarily for compatibility with earlier versions of Microsoft Excel. If you use both properties, the CommandText property’s value takes precedence.
For OLE DB sources, the CommandType property describes the value of the CommandText property.
For ODBC sources, the CommandText property functions exactly like the SQL property, and setting the property causes the data to be refreshed...
I really appreciate your short answers.
Martin08Martin0811 Answers
According to ADO: ActiveX Data Objects, a book by Jason T. Roff, published by O'Reilly Media in 2001 (excellent diagram here), he says precisely what MOZILLA said.
(directly from page 7 of that book)
- ODBC provides access only to relational databases
- OLE DB provides the following features
- Access to data regardless of its format or location
- Full access to ODBC data sources and ODBC drivers
So it would seem that OLE DB interacts with SQL-based datasources THRU the ODBC driver layer.
I'm not 100% sure this image is correct. The two connections I'm not certain about are ADO.NET thru ADO C-api, and OLE DB thru ODBC to SQL-based data source (because in this diagram the author doesn't put OLE DB's access thru ODBC, which I believe is a mistake).
ODBC:- Only for relational databases (Sql Server, Oracle etc)
OLE DB:- For both relational and non-relational databases. (Oracle, Sql-Server, Excel, raw files, etc)
MOZILLAMOZILLAHere's my understanding (non-authoritative):
ODBC is a technology-agnostic open standard supported by most software vendors.OLEDB is a technology-specific Microsoft's API from the COM-era (COM was a component and interoperability technology before .NET)
At some point various datasouce vendors (e.g. Oracle etc.), willing to be compatible with Microsoft data consumers, developed OLEDB providers for their products, but for the most part OLEDB remains a Microsoft-only standard. Now, most Microsoft data sources allow both ODBC and OLEDB access, mainly for compatibility with legacy ODBC data consumers. Also, there exists OLEDB provider (wrapper) for ODBC which allows one to use OLEDB to access ODBC data sources if one so wishes.
In terms of the features OLEDB is substantially richer than ODBC but suffers from one-ring-to-rule-them-all syndrome (overly generic, overcomplicated, non-opinionated).
In non-Microsoft world ODBC-based data providers and clients are widely used and not going anywhere.
Inside Microsoft bubble OLEDB is being phased out in favor of native .NET APIs build on top of whatever the native transport layer for that data source is (e.g. TDS for MS SQL Server).
zvolkovzvolkovOracle Oledb Driver
ODBC and OLE DB are two competing data access technologies. Specifically regarding SQL Server, Microsoft has promoted both of them as their Preferred Future Direction - though at different times.
ODBC is an industry-wide standard interface for accessing table-like data. It was primarily developed for databases and presents data in collections of records, each of which is grouped into a collection of fields. Each field has its own data type suitable to the type of data it contains.Each database vendor (Microsoft, Oracle, Postgres, …) supplies an ODBC driver for their database.
There are also ODBC drivers for objects which, though they are not database tables, are sufficiently similar that accessing data in the same way is useful. Examples are spreadsheets, CSV files and columnar reports.
OLE DB is a Microsoft technology for access to data. Unlike ODBC it encompasses both table-like and non-table-like data such as email messages, web pages, Word documents and file directories. However, it is procedure-oriented rather than object-oriented and is regarded as a rather difficult interface with which to develop access to data sources. To overcome this, ADO was designed to be an object-oriented layer on top of OLE DB and to provide a simpler and higher-level – though still very powerful – way of working with it. ADO’s great advantage it that you can use it to manipulate properties which are specific to a given type of data source, just as easily as you can use it to access those properties which apply to all data source types. You are not restricted to some unsatisfactory lowest common denominator.
While all databases have ODBC drivers, they don’t all have OLE DB drivers. There is however an interface available between OLE and ODBC which can be used if you want to access them in OLE DB-like fashion. This interface is called MSDASQL (Microsoft OLE DB provider for ODBC).
Since SQL Server is (1) made by Microsoft, and (2) the Microsoft database platform, both ODBC and OLE DB are a natural fit for it.
ODBC
Since all other database platforms had ODBC interfaces, Microsoft obviously had to provide one for SQL Server. In addition to this, DAO, the original default technology in Microsoft Access, uses ODBC as the standard way of talking to all external data sources. This made an ODBC interface a sine qua non.The version 6 ODBC driver for SQL Server, released with SQL Server 2000, is still around. Updated versions have been released to handle the new data types, connection technologies, encryption, HA/DR etc. that have appeared with subsequent releases. As of 09/07/2018 the most recent release is v13.1 “ODBC Driver for SQL Server”, released on 23/03/2018.
OLE DB
This is Microsoft’s own technology, which they were promoting strongly from about 2002 – 2005, along with its accompanying ADO layer. They were evidently hoping that it would become the data access technology of choice. (They even made ADO the default method for accessing data in Access 2002/2003.) However, it eventually became apparent that this was not going to happen for a number of reasons, such as:
- The world was not going to convert to Microsoft technologies andaway from ODBC;
- DAO/ODBC was faster than ADO/OLE DB and was also thoroughly integrated into MS Access, so wasn’t going to die a natural death;
- New technologies that were being developed by Microsoft, specifically ADO.NET, could also talk directly to ODBC. ADO.NET could talk directly to OLEDB as well (thus leaving ADO in a backwater), but it was not (unlikeADO) solely dependent on it.
For these reasons and others, Microsoft actually deprecated OLE DB as a data access technology for SQL Server releases after v11 (SQL Server 2012). For a couple of years before this point, they had been producing and updating the SQL Server Native Client, which supported both ODBC and OLE DB technologies. In late 2012 however, they announced that they would be aligning with ODBC for native relational data access in SQL Server, and encouraged everybody else to do the same. They further stated that SQL Server releases after v11/SQL Server 2012 would actively not support OLE DB!
This announcement provoked a storm of protest. People were at a loss to understand why MS was suddenly deprecating a technology that they had spent years getting them to commit to. In addition, SSAS/SSRS and SSIS, which were MS-written applications intimately linked to SQL Server, were wholly or partly dependent on OLE DB. Yet another complaint was that OLE DB had certain desirable features which it seemed impossible to port back to ODBC – after all, OLE DB had many good points.
In October 2017, Microsoft relented and officially un-deprecated OLE DB. They announced the imminent arrival of a new driver (MSOLEDBSQL) which would have the existing feature set of the Native Client 11 and would also introduce multi-subnet failover and TLS 1.2 support. The driver was released in March 2018.
On a very basic level those are just different APIs for the different data sources (i.e. databases). OLE DB is newer and arguably better.
You can read more on both in Wikipedia:
I.e. you could connect to the same database using an ODBC driver or OLE DB driver. The difference in the database behaviour in those cases is what your book refers to.
Gustavo Mori
Microsoft Ole Db Driver For Sql Server Tls 1.2
Sql Server Driver Download
Ilya KochetovIlya KochetovBoth are data providers (API that your code will use to talk to a data source). Oledb which was introduced in 1998 was meant to be a replacement for ODBC (introduced in 1992)
ArcturusArcturusI'm not sure of all the details, but my understanding is that OLE DB and ODBC are two APIs that are available for connecting to various types of databases without having to deal with all the implementation specific details of each. According to the Wikipedia article on OLE DB, OLE DB is Microsoft's successor to ODBC, and provides some features that you might not be able to do with ODBC such as accessing spreadsheets as database sources.
At Microsoft website, it shows that native OLEDB provider is applied to SQL server directly and another OLEDB provider called OLEDB Provider for ODBC to access other Database, such as Sysbase, DB2 etc. There are different kinds of component under OLEDB Provider. See Distributed Queries on MSDN for more.
Stacked• August, 2011: Microsoft deprecates OLE DB (Microsoft is Aligning with ODBC for Native Relational Data Access)
• October, 2017: Microsoft undeprecates OLE DB (Announcing the new release of OLE DB Driver for SQL Server)
ODBC works only for relational databases, it can't works with non-relational databases such as Ms Excel files. Where Olebd can do everything.
To know why M$ invents OLEDB, you can't compare OLEDB with ODBC. Instead, you should compare OLEDB with DAO,RDO, or ADO. The latter largely relies on SQL. However, OLEDB relies on COM. But ODBC is already there many years, so there's a OLEDB-ODBC bridges to remedy this. I think there's a big picture when M$ invents OLEDB.