Ask Reuben
ODBC Database Driver
What happend to the generic ODBC database driver?
Every operating system we support, every front-end we support, every database we support costs us money. Periodically these will be reviewed and if we think something is not being used then we will consider removing it. There is no value in building ports, running QA tests on something that is not being used, those resources can be better deployed elsewhere on something that is being used. When this happens you can expect to see some forum posts, entries in the Upgrade Guides during Early Access Programs (EAP), notes in the supported systems documentation, and some questions from your local support contact. This happened in 2022 with a number of database drivers. You can see the evidence of this in …
No one had moved across to use the IBM alternatives of DB2 and Netazza, and we did not believe anyone was using the generic ODBC driver, so the decision was made to desupport them.
I would like to point out that this is the “generic ODBC database driver”. This driver allowed you to connect to any other database that allowed an ODBC connection that we did not have a driver for. It was potentially useful if you needed to connect to a rare ODBC compliant database.
We don’t throw the code away, and if there was a commercial reason to bring something back it would be considered. The important point is that even if you miss the forum posts, or your local support contact did not know you were using that feature, the last point where you can best do something about these decisions is the Early Access Program (EAP) and reading the Upgrade Guides. Even if you had a minimum participation in the EAP at the beginning of the year, reading Upgrade Guides in the documentation to see if we have changed or removed something you use, should be part of that minimum participation.