Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)

Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) helped address the problem of needing to know the details of each DBMS used. ODBC provides a single interface for accessing a number of database systems. To accomplish this, ODBC provides a driver model for accessing data. Any database provider can write a driver for ODBC to access data from their database system. This enables developers to access that database through the ODBC drivers instead of talking directly to the database system. For data sources such as files, the ODBC driver plays the role of the engine, providing direct access to the data source. In cases where the ODBC driver needs to connect to a database server, the ODBC driver typically acts as a wrapper around the API exposed by the database server.

With this model, developers move from one DBMS to another and use many of the skills they have already acquired. Perhaps more important, a developer can write an application that doesn’t target aspecific database system. This is especially beneficial for vendors who write applications to be consumed by multiple customers. It gives customers the capability to choose the back-end database system they want to use, without requiring vendors to create several versions of their applications.

Limitations of ODBC

1. First, it is only capable of supporting relational data. If you need to
   access a hierarchical data source such as LDAP, or semi-structured data, ODBC can’t help you.
   


2. Second, it can only handle SQL statements, and the result must be representable in the form of rows and columns.Overall, ODBC was a huge success, considering what the previous environment was like.