What is Java JDBC and Different JDBC Driver Types

In this tutorial, we shall learn, what is JDBC API and different types of JDBC Drivers which are used to connect Java-based Web applications, desktop applications, and mobile applications with different types of Database servers like MS Database servers, MS Access, MySQL Server, Sybase database server, Oracle Database servers, and cloud databases, etc.

What is JDBC API: 

JDBC stands for "Java Database Connectivity. JDBC is a standard Java API for providing database-independent connectivity between Java applications and different types of databases. The
JDBC API contains a number of interfaces and classes that are extensively helpful while
communicating with a database.JDBC technology support java developers to use java in applications for write once and run anywhere capabilities.

Below are possibles with the JDBC API, it is

• Used to establish a connection with a database of different vendors.
• Used to send SQL statements (create, update, delete, insert, etc) to the database
• Used to process the accessed results

JDBC Driver Types

There are four types or levels of JDBC Driver. Each type is used to define a JDBC driver implementation with respect to Database Type, platform independence, performance, deployment, and administration.
 

Below are the four types of JDBC Driver:

1. JDBC - ODBC Bridge
2. Native - API / partly Java driver
3. Net - protocol / all-Java driver
4. Native - protocol / all-Java driver

1- JDBC - ODBC Bridge

JDBC - ODBC Bridge type is generally used to connect java database driven applications with Microsoft databases like MS Access and MS SQL Server.  It first translates all JDBC calls into ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) calls and then sends them to the ODBC Driver which is further used for communicating with databases. Due to this reason, this type of driver performance is degraded

Native - API/partly Java driver

Partly Java drivers use Java Native Interface to communicate with database-specific API which may be written in C/C++. This type first converts JDBC calls into database-specific calls such as SQL Server, Informix, Oracle, or Sybase. Its performance is significantly better than the JDBC-ODBC bridge.

 Net - protocol / all-Java driver

As shown in the below diagram, this JDBC Driver type follows a three-tiered approach to connect with the database server whereby the JDBC requests () are passed through via the middle-tier server. The Pure Java application client first sends requests to the middleware server which is not database specific server, it translates requests into a database-specific protocol and then sends it to the Database server. If the middle-tier server is written in pure java language, then a type 1 or type 2 JDBC driver can be used to do this

Native - protocol / all-Java driver

This type of JDBC Driver is completely implemented in Java language to achieve platform independence and the elimination of deployment issues. It converts JDBC calls directly into the vendor-specific DBMS protocol which enables the java client application to communicate directly with the database server. This type of driver's Performance is very good as compared to other types of drivers.

Benefits of JDBC Technology

1- The JDBC API is simple to learn. Developers can easily learn JDBC and use it efficiently in their database-driven java applications. It is easy to deploy and inexpensive to maintain it. 

2- JDBC technology make it possible for leveraging existing enterprise data and save businesses to lock if it was previously using any proprietary architecture, business can continue to use and access their installed existing databases easily even database stored on different DBMS Software...

3- Using Java API and the JDBC API, enterprise database-driven custom applications development has become simplified, easy,  and economical. Because JDBC hides the complexity of many data access tasks and provides easy methods to access the databases. It makes the applications to easy to deploy and their maintenance less expensive.

4- By using JDBC API, there is almost zero configuration for network client computers which supports the network computing paradigm and centralizes software maintenance.
5- JDBC Drive has better support to connect java applications with cloud databases.