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Table Of Contents
Chapter 21
Developing ADO.NET Client Applications
SQLFire provides a managed ADO.NET driver that you can use to develop non-Java client applications. The ADO.NET
driver uses IKVM technology to translate SQLFire JDBC core libraries into .NET MSIL. The driver is supported with
the Microsoft .NET 2.0 SP1 or higher framework.
Note: You cannot register a custom .NET type as a user-dened type in SQLFire.
About the ADO.NET Driver
The SQLFire ADO.NET driver is an implementation of Microsoft's ADO.NET interfaces and abstract classes.
It provides connectivity to a SQLFire system as a network client driver. In this release of SQLFire, the ADO.NET
driver does not support running a SQLFire member in an embedded mode (embedded driver) within an application.
The driver provides fast access to a SQLFire cluster from .NET clients and enables advanced SQLFire features
such as:
Transparent access to partitioned or replicated data in the cluster
High availability
Distributed queries and transactions
You can access the driver through any .NET language including C#, C++/CLI, and Visual Basic .NET. As with
the JDBC network driver, the ADO.NET driver complies with the DRDA standard protocol and utilizes several
SQLFire extensions to provide enhanced features.
The following sections provide more information about the ADO.NET driver:
High Availability on page 117
Load Balancing on page 118
Extensions for Batching and Row Locking on page 118
High Availability
The ADO.NET driver maintains information about the servers available in a SQLFire cluster. If the server to
which the client is connected goes down, then the driver automatically re-routes the connection to another server
available in the cluster.
To take full advantage of this feature, clients should connect using the address of a stand-alone SQLFire locator
rather than a SQLFire server, because locators provide more accurate information about the available servers to
which a client can fail over. If you specify the address of a server rather than a stand-alone locator, then it is
possible that the client will fail to nd any available server if those servers have been taken ofine.
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