About database drivers

JDBC drivers have four types. In general, Type 4 drivers, also known as native-protocol/all-Java drivers, offer superior performance to other JDBC driver types. ColdFusion also supplies Type 3 drivers for Microsoft Access and for the ODBC Socket.

The JDBC-ODBC Bridge is a Type 1 driver. Macromedia advises using the JDBC-ODBC Bridge only when necessary, because of the relatively low performance of Type 1 drivers. An example in which you use the JDBC-ODBC Bridge is when your ColdFusion server is running Windows 98/ME. Because Windows 98/ME architecture does not support Services, the Microsoft Access and ODBC Socket drivers (which are both Type 3 drivers) are unavailable. Therefore, you use the JDBC-ODBC Bridge to connect your Windows 98/ME ColdFusion server to an ODBC data source.

The following table describes the JDBC drivers for ColdFusion, and provides procedures for connecting to data sources using those drivers:

Driver	Type
DB2 Universal Database	4
Informix	4
Microsoft Access	3
Microsoft SQL Server	4
MySQL	4
ODBC Socket	3
JDBC-ODBC Bridge	1
Oracle	4
Other
Sybase	4

(Taken from Help screens for Cold Fusion Administrator)

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Thus to use Cold Fusion MX with Windows 98 or ME, one must first create a data source in Start>Control Panel>ODBC Data Sources>System DSN.  One then uses this system DSN when one creates a data source in Cold Fusion Administrator.  In Windows 2000 and XP, one can create the data source directly in Cold Fusion Administrator for Access and a number of other databases.

Revised: September 8, 2002. Comments to wpegram@nvcc.edu