14 DAY TRIAL // Developers that need to connect Java project with Microsoft’s data platform have a new version of the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) driver available for download. The Redmond company has finalized and started offering downloads of SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0 in conjunction with the release to manufacturing of SQL Server 2008 R2. Version 3.0 of the SQL Server JDBC Driver is currently up for grabs via the Microsoft Download Center. As all previous releases of the Type 4 JDBC driver, v.3.0 is offered free of charge to SQL Server customers.
Microsoft introduced the last Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0 at the start of March, 2010, and synchronized the RTM release with that of SQL Server 2008 R2. The latest iteration of the company’s data platform was RTM’d yesterday, April 21st, 2010.
SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0 is capable of offering database connectivity via the JDBC application program interfaces (APIs) in Java Platform with SQL Server 2008 R2, but also with SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2000. However, despite being designed to play nice with SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0 continues to be focused on its predecessor.
“This version of the JDBC driver provides support for features introduced in SQL Server 2008, which includes date and time data types, sparse columns, MERGE statements and large user-defined types (UDTs). The support for the new date and time data types includes new setter, getter, and updater methods for SQL Server time, date, datetime2 and datetimeoffset data types,” Amina Saify – JDBC, explains.
At the same time, there are additional enhancements, such as “support for large UDTs includes handling CLR UDTs that are larger than 8000 bytes as binary data. Also, this release adds interfaces for unwrap and isWrapper in the Wrapper interface. In addition, this release enhances metadata support by adding sparse column metadata and new date and time metadata,” Saify adds.
SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0 is available for download here.