5 Ways “Free” Drivers Will Destroy Your Business

We all know that in today’s world, free is never actually free. “You get what you pay for” applies to data connectivity.

You probably already know what a driver is, but as a refresher—different databases have different versions of a client-server protocol. To receive and store information in the database, you must speak this protocol. Instead of every user implementing the protocol on their own, database vendors provide a piece of software called a driver. This driver implements the protocol and exposes it as an API, which applications can use to interact with the database.

What if you want to change the database server? This is where standards like JDBC, ODBC and OData come in. Rather than rewriting your client application every time you switch vendors to match their individual APIs, your ODBC/JDBC/OData-compliant drivers can seamlessly implement the same standard API defined in the spec. This enables you to not have to rewrite every time you switch databases.

Free Versus Paid

Basically, drivers are the middlemen of your data connectivity ecosystem. They enable you to connect your application seamlessly to your data source. As a developer, you are well aware that free drivers are available—and if you are building a one-off app, a free driver may be adequate. But, as I said in the beginning, free is never without cost.

This list explains the five pitfalls of free connectivity.

5 Reasons Free Drivers Should Scare You

1. Free drivers do not have a way to keep up with new releases and functionality, deprecations, and version management of driver files and/or client software.
2. No real technical support. You need to consider who will support you and your customers (or end users) when there are problems or questions. More than likely your internal IT group (or Development) needs to be focused on other priorities.
3. Database vendors are focused on revenue-generating databases, not “free” drivers. Our expertise is data connectivity. Our engineers are passionate and committed to continuously providing connectivity to any data source to any application.
4. Database vendors aren’t supporting or providing fixes for older database versions. This can require you to DIY or upgrade your existing database.
5. The quality of a “throw-in” product for your business-critical apps is often sketchy. The performance and reliability you’ll get from a free connector with no commitment from a database vendor should make you nervous.

Here’s how Progress DataDirect drivers stack up against third party vendors and free distributions.

Meet Your High Performance Driver Engineers

Drivers engineered for free distribution typically reflect their cost in the quality of their engineering and backend coding. At Progress, we engineer our drivers with some of the most highly qualified engineers in the world. Let me introduce you to just a few of the superstars on our team, who are all eager to make your connectivity issues disappear.

Idaliz Baez—Resident NASA Rocket Scientist

Idaliz graduated Duke University with a degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Before coming to Progress she spent a year at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center before returning to Duke for her Masters of Engineering Management degree at Duke.

Check out her LinkedIn profile to learn more about Idaliz, or simply hover your mouse over the text below and a tooltip will appear with the list.

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Mike Johnson—Software R&D Aficionado

Mike is a proven leader with over 20 years of experience developing commercial software. He has experience in all aspects of development including requirements analysis, developing functional requirements, developing/mentoring individuals, staffing, budgeting, product development, quality assurance, training and customer communication.

Check out his LinkedIn profile to learn more about Mike, or hover over the text below.

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Saikrishna Teja Bobba—DataDirect Developer Evangelist

Saikrishna was a software engineer at Infosys before getting his Masters in Computer Science at North Carolina State University. Saikrishna joined Progress DataDirect as an intern in June 2015 after meeting the challenge of successfully building a Meetup.com API connector for Tableau. We’re delighted to have him full time.

Find out more about Saikrishna on his LinkedIn profile or hover over the text below.

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You Get What You Pay For

Our team at Progress DataDirect is fully dedicated to bringing you the highest level of engineering and support for all of your data connectivity solutions. We keep up with new releases and functionality, deprecations, and version management of driver files and/or client software for you, so you can be worry-free and focus on more exciting IT initiatives.

Our drivers consistently outperform our competition in testing. We bring the passion, drive and consistency that a free solution lacks. Over 10,000 global enterprises in 160+ countries use DataDirect, including 96 of the Fortune 100 and over 350 ISVs worldwide. Contact us or leave a comment if you have any questions or insight, we would love to hear from you. Try any of our products free for 15 days to see for yourself the difference a premium connectivity solution provides.

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