Top 10 Reasons You Need Commercial Data Drivers

Big Data, applications, data sources, you’ve got a lot you’re spending money on. Why would you buy data drivers when it could be free? Let’s explore.

Let’s say you have invested in your data source, bought the perfect application and the only thing standing in your way is getting them connected and analyzing. If you have done any research, you know that there are free native drivers that help you with such connectivity needs. So, if there are free options, is there a point in paying for drivers? Put simply, there is. As you will see, free is not always free.

1. A 550% Savings in Memory

Compared to native drivers, our drivers process more while consuming significantly less memory, which in some cases, saves our clients over 550% in memory.

2. A 500% Improvement on Performance

Free or native drivers do not communicate with the database at the wire level. DataDirect drivers communicate directly with the database over TCP/IP using the database’s wire-level API. This eliminates bottlenecks in CPU, network and memory while also improving throughput—even with an increasing user base. When Yamaha implemented our JDBC drivers, it increased the performance of their system 20x!

3. Exponential Throughput

Native drivers and Premium drivers are inversely proportional with regard to throughput. Unlike our competition, our throughput processes more work in given period of time—and actually increases as more users are added.

In our lab, we decided to test this premise against out competition. Feel free to read all about our tests in Mike’s blog, “You Can’t Improve Anything You Can’t Measure.” We set up three virtual machines and ran ourselves against the competition on each machine, and then aggregated them—all of them on the same physical box so we could tell when we were hitting scalability limits.

We discovered that, using the same virtual machine resource, we were able to get 45k rows while the competition got 15k rows. We were also able to reduce the number of virtual machines per application by a factor of 3x.

4. Make Your Applications More Reliable

One of the major benefits to communication with the database’s wire-level API is that the memory leaks, application hangs and crashes are avoided. Wire protocol drivers bypass client libraries and connect directly to the database. How does the TCP/IP socket leverage the wire-level API? Find out in one of our favorite posts, “Socket Management and Candy Crush.”

5. Support More Databases and Platforms Than Your Competition

Progress DataDirect drivers connect to over 200 data sources in the cloud with no complex firewall configurations required, and we keep up with the latest database versions and features for you. We offer 32-bit and 64-bit ODBC and JDBC on-premises drivers for Oracle, OB2, SQL Server, Sybase, lnformix, Salesforce, MySQL and others running on Windows, UNIX or Linux platforms.

6. Simplify Deployment and Administration

Native drivers require meticulous configuration, installation and maintenance. The dollars that you save on free drivers are spent in IT hours and configuration hiccups. Premium drivers free you from client libraries, eliminate the need for different client software products on each system and let you focus on your business instead of constant maintenance.

7.  A 400% Increase in CPU Efficiency

DataDirect drivers use significantly fewer CPU cycles than other competing drivers. This efficiency boost can increase your CPU by up to 100%.

With the ability to consolidate machines through efficiency, you save incredible amounts of capital. To put this in perspective, we ran a test for the blog, “Increasing Throughput and Real-World Machine Consolidation,” and computed the large scale savings based on the price of Amazon servers.

8. Scalability and Flexibility

Unless you are a tech giant, you probably don’t have an unlimited resource environment. With limited resources, scalability throughput and response time are essential. Premium drivers deliver improvements in all these areas and maximize your limited resources.

What does this scalability look like? In the chart below, the left side represents the number of threads (simulating the number of users). On the top of the chart is the number of virtual machines used. In the middle, we see the rows/second. You can see that our competition needs three virtual machines to match one of our own.

9. Trusted by 10k+ Enterprises

Lots of companies will throw in a free diver that satisfies the minimal requirements to get you up and running. It makes sense, they aren’t known for exceptional drivers. They want to focus on their core competencies. Our team’s core competency IS drivers, and they are rigorously tested, used by 10,000 global enterprises in 160+ countries. In fact, our technology is used by 96 of the Fortune 100, and 350 independent software vendors leverage our patented technology.

10. Award-Winning 24/7 Technical Support

Let’s take this scenario; you have just installed a top-tier data source to connect to your favorite application. You are proud of your setup, but because you were focused on major building blocks, you used a free driver. It breaks. Who are you going to ask? How much money will you throw away on IT dollars?

Our 24/7 technical support consistently receives high ratings in both quality and responsiveness. They provide every customer with assistance in performance, scalability, reliability and availability. Combined, they have over 400 years of experience. You will not get this support from a company that does not specialize in data connectivity.

How Do Premium Drivers Measure Up?

Below is a table to summarize what you get with premium vs. 3^rd party or free solutions.

Do More than the Minimal Requirements

Are you ready to fully leverage the power of your data connectivity? Don’t deal with subpar, minimal drivers with no support and countless hours of maintenance. Partner with Progress DataDirect and reap the benefits of premium connectivity and save the money and time that you could use in your business instead of IT emergencies. Want us to prove it? Try it for free!

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