HiT Ships Updated DB2/400 for .NET Data Provider

July 26, 2011 Alex Woodie

HiT Software this month unveiled a new release of Ritmo, a .NET data provider used to hook DB2/400 and other DB2 databases into the latest Windows applications. With version 5, the software vendor now enables developers to work with Ritmo from within Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, among several other new capabilities.

Ritmo is a Windows-based product that helps Windows developers build high-speed, native data connections between their .NET applications and their data residing in the three DB2 database versions, including DB2/400, DB2 for Linux, Unix, and Windows, and DB2 for the mainframe. The software does this by reading SQL statements from Windows apps and translating it into IBM’s Optimized Database Server protocol. No additional software is required on the database server.

With Ritmo version 5, HiT now offers full integration with Visual Studio 2010, as well as backward compatibility with older versions of the Microsoft IDE. Support for the .NET Framework 4.0 is also included. Integration with Visual Studio is only offered with the Developer Editions of Ritmo, which features wizards and graphical design-plug-ins, as well as a C# Toolkit and integration to SQL Server Reporting Services.

The IBM i edition of Ritmo, called Ritmo/i, includes several new features, including improved support for CCSID override features. The new version of the Ritmo/i offering (which itself is available in Windows client and server versions, in addition to developer and plain-Jane versions) also features enhanced support for SQL syntax, catalog queries, and IBM i numeric-to-decimal datatype conversion, HiT Software says.

Both main Ritmo versions (Ritmo/DB2 and Ritmo/i) get the capability to manage trace file size, while the DB2 version of Ritmo (which supports DB2 for LUW and DB2 for z/OS), gain support for the ADO.NET Entity Framework.

HiT is shipping Ritmo/i version 5 now, while Ritmo/DB2 version 5 is slated to ship next month. For more information see the vendor’s website at www.hitsw.com.