ODBC over Red Hat ES 5 and SQL/SERVER?

[mpua]

Hi!

They're asking me about if a installation of ODBC Red Hat Enterprise Server 5 and SQL/SERVER is feasible or not... and if the answer is yes, what are the disadvantages?

Anyone with knowledge about this issue?

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

The name "SQL/SERVER" is not clear. Do you mean Microsoft SQL Server? It is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems only, so the answer would be "no, you cannot run SQL Server on Linux".

ODBC is a standardized database access API. One implementation of it is UnixODBC, and it seems to be included in RedHat Enterprise Linux distributions as an optional package. This would allow you to run ODBC-compliant client programs on RedHat or other Linux host and have them connect to a SQL Server on some Windows platform.

MK

[mpua]

Hi!

Ur right, I didnt explain myself properly:

We have a Windows server with Microsoft SQL/SERVER and we need to access it from a Red Hat 5 server we have.

We have learnt that we can use unixODBC as you said but we havent installed it yet.

Our boss just told us that he need to know the disadvantages of such a installation (unixODBC driver in RHES for accessing MS SQL-SERVER on Windows).

[Tim Nelson]

I think this depends on what you wish to accomplish? are you looking to run another application from a different platform that requires ODBC access to a MS/SQL DB ? then how else are you going to do it ?

I guess a disadvantage of ODBC vs a native client (which I doubt M$ makes a Linux native client) is that ODBC is typically less efficent and therefore does not perform as well..

but if performance was a concern then you woul not be hosting a DB on M$..;)

There could also possibly be some functionality that you can not do in ODBC vs the native client.

[mpua]

Ok, we'll check it out.

Thanks for your replies!