[Zope-DB] ANN: eGenix mxODBC Zope Database Adapter, Version 1.0.4

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Wed, 23 Apr 2003 23:22:06 +0200


________________________________________________________________________
ANNOUNCEMENT

                              EGENIX.COM

                      mxODBC Zope Database Adapter

                             Version 1.0.4

                    Available for Zope 2.3 - 2.6 on
                       Windows, Linux and Solaris

________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION

The eGenix mxODBC Zope Database Adapter (Zope DA) allows you to easily
connect your Zope installation to just about any database backend on
the market today, giving you the reliability of the commercially
supported eGenix.com product mxODBC and the flexibility of the ODBC
standard as middle-tier architecture.

Unlike Zope's ZODBC Zope DA, the mxODBC Zope DA works on Windows
XP/NT/2000/98/95, Linux and Solaris using the same interface on all
platforms.

The mxODBC Zope DA implements thread-safe connection pooling and
multiple physical connects per logical Zope connection. You can safely
run Z SQL Methods in parallel, achieving a much better performance
than ZODBC Zope DA or similar Zope database adapters under heavy load.

This makes it ideal for deployment in Zope Clusters and Zope hosting
environments where stability and high performance are a top priority.

________________________________________________________________________
FEATURES

* Zope Level 3 Database Adapter: the mxODBC Zope DA is fully
   multi-threaded and can handle multiple connections to multiple
   databases.

* Fully compatible to Z SQL Methods.

* Drop-in compatible to the ZODBC DA: the mxODBC Zope DA provides the
   same interfaces as Zope's ZODBC DA to allow a smooth upgrade path
   from this simplistic adapater to the high performance mxODBC Zope
   DA.

* Fully compatible to the Znolk SQL Wizard Product and other similar
   products relying on the common database schema access methods
   .tables() and .columns().

* Connection Pooling: physical database connections are pooled and
   kept open, to reduce the connection overhead to a minimum.  This is
   especially important for high latency database connections and ones
   like Oracle which take a considerable amount of time to setup

* Parallel Execution of Queries on a single logical connection: the
   mxODBC Zope DA can manage any number of physical connections on a
   single logical connection. This enables running truly parallel Z SQL
   Method queries -- a feature not available in other Zope DAs.

* Robust Mode of Operation: connections which have timed out or go
   away due to network problems are automatically reconnected.

* Cross-platform Connection Objects: The Zope DA will automatically
   choose the right platform specific ODBC manager for you.

* Per Connection Adjustable ODBC Interface: mxODBC comes with many
   different subpackages to choose from on Unix. The Zope DA allows you
   to select these subpackages on a per-connection basis.

* Per Connection Error Handling: you can tell each connection whether
   it should report ODBC warnings or not; furthermore all warnings and
   errors are made available as list .messages on the DatabaseConnection
   object.

* Transaction safe automatic reconnect: when the DA finds that a
   connection has timed out, it automatically tries a reconnect
   and replays the transaction on the connection (unlike other DAs
   which break the transaction scheme by doing a reconnect without
   replay).

* Built-in Schema Cache: this results in improved performance under
   heavy load.

* Database Schema Access: all ODBC catalog methods are made available
   for much better database schema inquiry. The catalog methods allow
   building generic database interrogation or manipulation tools and
   facilitates writing database independent Zope products.

________________________________________________________________________
NEWS

We have had a lot of positive user feedback about the mxODBC Zope
Database Adapter 1.0.0.

* Some users have reported problems with certain ODBC drivers which
   required adding work-arounds and special options to the adapter. The
   version 1.0.4 includes a whole set of connection options which make
   the mxODBC Zope DA even more compatible to ODBC drivers in the
   field.

* We also added a few usability enhancements, e.g. the default for
   creating connections is now to create closed connections. This makes
   it much easier setting up and configuring the connection objects.

* Due to popular demand we put a lot of work into getting the mxODBC
   Zope DA to work with the 0.61 release of the FreeTDS ODBC driver.
   This driver is typically used when connecting from Linux to MS SQL
   Server.

* Connections to non-transactional data sources are now also possible
   using a special connection option. This allows direct read-only
   access to e.g. Access or Excel files on Windows. It also makes
   connections to MySQL 3.x possible.

* Because the mxODBC Zope DA supports multiple result sets, we added
   an option to always fetch the last available result set.  This is
   sometimes needed when moving from ZODBC DA to mxODBC Zope DA if you
   are working with stored procedures.

* Last not least, the mxODBC Zope DA is now also available for the
   Solaris platform.

In short: mxODBC Zope DA is moving to become the number one solution
for integrating relational databases with Zope applications.

________________________________________________________________________
UPGRADING

If you have already bought mxODBC Zope DA licenses, you can use these
license for the updated version as well. There is no need to buy new
licenses. The same is true for evaluation license users.

________________________________________________________________________
MORE INFORMATION

For more information on the mxODBC Zope DA, licensing and download
instructions, please visit our web-site:

     http://www.egenix.com/

________________________________________________________________________

Thank you,
-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

Professional Python Software directly from the Source  (#1, Apr 23 2003)
>>> Python/Zope Products & Consulting ...         http://www.egenix.com/
>>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ...        http://python.egenix.com/
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EuroPython 2003, Charleroi, Belgium:                        62 days left