HiT Software Touts Performance of New .NET-to-DB2 Middleware

by Alex Woodie

Developers looking for a way to connect Microsoft Studio.NET applications to DB2 databases may find a solution from HiT Software. The San Jose, California, company last month announced a new SQL middleware product called Ritmo for DB2, which supports iSeries, mainframe, Windows, and Unix DB2 servers, and which HiT Software claims provides faster .NET to DB2 data access than the OLE and ODBC data bridge methods sanctioned by Microsoft, while supporting the Common Language Runtime environment.

HiT Software claims that Ritmo for DB2 solves performance and compatibility issues related to access to DB2 data stores from .NET applications developed in Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET development environment. Before Ritmo for DB2, developers had to use Microsoft's ADO.NET-to-OLE DB and ADO.NET-to-ODBC middleware products to access DB2 servers, if they wanted to be compatible with Visual Studio.NET, according to HiT Software. However, this method is slow, HiT Software claims, and does not allow the underlying drivers to take advantage of Microsoft's Common Language Runtime environment, which is a major component of the .NET Framework.

Accessing DB2 data through a native .NET data provider like Ritmo lets external databases take full advantage of .NET application management, said Giacomo Lorenzin, HiT Software's chief executive. "With Ritmo for DB2, our customers' .NET applications will see increased performance, more flexible development language choices, and better scalability compared to bridge-based solutions," he said.

Ritmo for DB2 resides on Windows 2000/NT/XP client platforms and is comprised of a set of objects for accessing, retrieving, and updating data on the DB2 server. The middleware accepts SQL commands from the .NET application through ADO.NET, or directly through its own object properties and methods, and then translates these commands into native DB2 SQL for execution on the DB2 server. The software also includes a complete set of documented data type mapping definitions between DB2 servers and .NET environments.

HiT Software provides Ritmo for DB2 users with a library of sample code to get them started querying, retrieving, and updating DB2 databases from .NET applications. The sample code supports both C# and Visual Basic.NET development environments. Also included with the software is a toolbox that provides data source definition and diagnostics, including trace and debugging tools to help troubleshoot and tune performance.

Ritmo for DB2 can connect to DB2 databases over TCP/IP as well as SNA networks, and it supports DB2 on every platform that IBM supports, because it uses IBM's Distributed Relational Database Architecture protocol. Ritmo for DB2 is available in both client and server models. Pricing starts at $249 for the client and $3,995 for the server version. For more information, go to www.hitsw.com.

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