HiT Middleware Delivers Fast DB2/400 Access for .NET Apps

by Alex Woodie

Developers looking to optimize DB2/400 access to their new Microsoft .NET applications may want to check out HiT Software's latest data access middleware. The San Jose, California, company recently launched Ritmo 2.0, an updated version of its ADO.NET data provider, which comes in two flavors: regular and iSeries. With this release, Ritmo supports new data types, the double-byte character set, and features other enhancements aimed at improving performance.

Before the advent of .NET, developers looked to OLE DB and ODBC to provide the best data transport mechanisms for their Windows applications. However, new programming frameworks require new tools, and Microsoft developed a new data-access method with .NET. For the best performance, the software giant recommends its new ActiveX Data Object-based data provider that was built specially for .NET, which it calls ADO.NET.

Ritmo is an ADO.NET data provider that developers and systems integrators use within their .NET applications to generate SQL statements that can efficiently access, retrieve, and update data within IBM databases: standard DB2 for Windows and Unix applications, and DB2/400 for OS/400 applications. For each of these database environments, Ritmo generates native SQL statements; HiT says Ritmo supports the IBM Distributed Relational Database Architecture for DB2 and the Optimized Database Server protocol for DB2/400.

With Ritmo 2.0, HiT Software has added several new features to maximize performance, such as connection pooling, bulk data insert, and data compression. Ritmo 2.0 also provides support for additional data types, including binary large objects (BLOBs) and character large objects (CLOBs), as well as BIGINT, a relatively new SQL data type. Support for the double-byte character set in Ritmo 2.0 also opens the tool to be used by Asian .NET developers.

Ritmo 2.0 integrates directly with Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET toolbox. "Ritmo represents an important SQL middleware advance that gives customers increased application uptime, higher performance, and greater control in a .NET environment," says Giacomo Lorenzin, CEO of HiT Software. "Ritmo's fully managed code architecture gives developers the full set of .NET benefits, including greater security."

The most recent Ritmo version in the OS/400 flavor, Ritmo for iSeries 2.0, is shipping now. Licenses for the software start at $249. Ritmo for DB2 Version 2.0 will be available later this quarter. For more information, go to www.hitsw.com.

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