ODBC driver managers

The ODBC driver manager serves as an intermediary between an application and an ODBC driver. The driver provides a single place for an application to invoke most ODBC API functions. In most DBMS application environments, including the IBM® Netezza® appliance environment, the application is linked to the driver manager and is not linked directly to a specific ODBC driver.

The driver manager is the ODBC component that manages communication between applications and ODBC drivers. In most cases, ODBC applications issue ODBC API calls to the driver manager, and the driver manager, in turn, passes those calls to the appropriate ODBC driver. The ODBC driver then accesses the underlying database management system software.

For performance reasons, depending on the database management system software, some API functions might bypass the driver manager and access the ODBC driver directly.