ODBC provides a uniform interface that simplifies connecting a client to a variety of relational databases, non-relational databases, text files, and specialized files, such as Microsoft SQL 6.5 or JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity). ODBC provides the bridge between the uniform client interface and the vendor proprietary network communications protocol software, text files, and specialized files.

Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) is an open standard setup by Microsoft that allows communication between applications and various database servers [22]. The ODBC drivers provide a translation layer between front-end applications and their server data storage. For example, the ODBC driver for SQL Server 6.5 allows Access 97 to communicate seamlessly with Microsoft SQL Server. Drivers allow the same Access 97 application to communicate with Oracle, Sybase, FoxPro, or dBASE.

The JDBC-ODBC Bridge is a JDBC driver that implements JDBC operations by translating them into ODBC operations. To ODBC, it appears as a normal application program. The Bridge implements JDBC for any database for which an ODBC driver is available. The Bridge is implemented as the sun.jdbc.odbc Java package and contains a native library used to access ODBC [8]. The Bridge is a joint development of Intersolv and JavaSoft. The bridge supports ODBC 2.x. This is the version that most ODBC drivers currently support. It will also likely work with most forthcoming ODBC 3.x drivers. The bridge is implemented in Java and uses Java native methods to call ODBC [13].

A basic ODBC system for a Web database consists of five parts [22]:

• Server extension program - This program translates Web browser requests into ODBC SQL statements, submits them to the data source by way of the ODBC driver, and retrieves the results. An example of an ODBC function call is SQLConnect, which connects to the data source when given a data source name, a user ID and password, and a few other parameters.

• ODBC driver manager - This DLL is linked with a server extension program. One of its purposes is to load the ODBC driver for the requested data source. It also checks many of the ODBC function calls before passing then on to the ODBC driver. Further, it can trace functions and save the results to a trace file for debugging purposes.
• ODBC administrator - This is a program that the system administrator uses to maintain a registry that associates a data source name with an ODBC database. The advantage of this indirection is that if the database moves to a different directory or server, only a quick change using the ODBC administrator is necessary for the server extension program to keep working.
• ODBC driver - This is a driver, often developed by the vendor of the database, which performs database interactions. It translates ODBC SQL statements into the database's native statements and then makes the call.
• Data source - This is a term used in ODBC programming to refer to a database, its associated operating system, and any network information needed to access it. This cluster of information is stored in the registry maintained by the ODBC administrator.

Database access with the IIS system is provided by giving the user ODBC connectivity to the HTML pages that execute on the server when the user makes a request of the system.

Users must set up each data source as a System DSN (Data Source Name), making it available to the JDBC as it logs in to NT's security subsystem. There will likely be change in the SQLStatement options that the user indicates in the JDBC file. These differences relate to how Access interprets the SQL language elements. However, the statements should be nearly identical, especially in those cases where users are issuing SQL statements that are basically SELECT statements, rather than calling stored procedures, which are not supported by Access. When the user creates the DSN, the user will be prompted to select the database with which ODBC should connect [14].

Microsoft has added a new option to the ODBC configurations to support a System DSN. These special data sources give users a way to set up a globally available data source. Setting up a system level ODBC driver configuration is much the same as establishing a new ODBC configuration. Users will need to indicate the driver, database, and other information required connecting to database engine.