Questions and answers

Are there really two IBM.Data.Informix Providers?

There are indeed two providers from IBM that implement the IBM.Data.Informix namespace. There is the Informix .NET provider shipped with the Informix(tm) CSDK product, and there is the Common IDS .NET provider (a feature of the IBM Data Server Provider for .NET) shipped with the IBM Data Server set of products. The Common IDS .NET provider is part of the next version of IBM Data Server .NET clients, and can be downloaded from the DB2 .NET Download links web site.

The Informix .NET provider has been in existance for a while, and provides access to Informix V7 and later servers. Documentaiton on the features of this provider is in the Informix .NET Provider Reference Guide .

The Common IDS .NET provider is new, and is referred to as Common as it utilizes the DRDA interface to communicate with Informix Cheetah (V11.10 and later) servers and will thus produce common behavior with the DB2 .NET provider that also utilizes the DRDA protocol. This provider is implemented with common code from the DB2 .NET provider, and will continue to be enhanced over time in lock step with the DB2 .NET provider. It offers several features over the Informix .NET provider:

64-bit support
schema metadata functions
remote database enumeration
FW 3.0, 3.5 support

The Common IDS .NET provider does not completely support all Informix server datatypes and is recommended more for new deployments than migrations from the Informix .NET provider. Many of these migration issues will be addressed over time.

In addition to the runtime benefits outlined above, the Visual Studio Addins have these features enabled for the Common IDS .NET provider:

VS 2008 support (in addition to VS 2005)
Web app development
IIS Web services generation
Designers to create tables, procedures, functions and triggers
Designers to alter tables and triggers
View / alter row data
Run procedures and functions

This is in addition to the features already available with Visual Studio 2005 Addins for the Informix .NET Provider:

Server Explorer integration
Windows app development