HiT Software, Inc., a provider of data integration, and change data capture products for heterogeneous database environments, has released HiT ODBC/400 v9.0 and HiT OLEDB/400 v5.0.
"These are new versions of our popular ODBC and OLEDB connectivity products for the IBM i, also known as the AS/400, and this is important for us because IBM DB2 for i, which is the database that runs on that system, is really a very well-loved and respected workhorse," Carolyn Hughes, director of marketing for HiT Software, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
"We have a long list of customers who have these products installed but they depend on us to update them to match both the development on IBM's side -- for which the most recent is version 7, release 1 of the IBM DB2 for i product -- and as well on the Microsoft side because they use Microsoft products for development of the applications," Hughes notes. "They need our products to be able to work with Visual Studio and all the platforms and the desktops that are in play when they develop their applications."
The new product versions offer full support for Microsoft Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010, Office 2010 and Windows Server 2008; full support for IBM System i V7R1; 32-bit and 64-bit platform support; a new C# toolkit in the HiT ODBC/400 Developer Edition for SQL management, as well as additional new features.
HiT Software's connectivity products for IBM i stand out for several different reasons, according to Hughes. One is that they are backwards compatible to previous versions of both the IBM DB2 database but also to the Microsoft products. "This is really helpful to those developers who need to establish this connectivity but they aren't exactly sure which version of the databases are in place, and who has what products on their desktop for development, so that's a huge plus," says Hughes.
And, another key benefit of the HiT connectivity products is that they are small footprint and easy to maintain, Hughes adds. "Part of that easy maintenance is related to the toolkits that we provide with the developer editions of these products, which allow you to run all sorts of queries on the database, and support stored procedures. The toolkits help developers with a lot of time-savings processes."
Free trials for both HiT ODBC/400 and HiT OLEDB/400 products can be downloaded here.