Re: Performance of ODBC vs. other access methods

"What's the prevailing wisdom backed up by real world experience when
using ODBC from whatever tool or programming language to access
DB2/400
or ORACLE versus using some other remote or distributed access method
such as DRDA, calls to stored procedures or API calls?   I've been
told
that ODBC is a good performer but have my doubts.

Actually I did answer your question based on the information given. 

When you say "whatever tool or programming language" you leave this wide 
open to a very generic, broad answer. 

If you were asking about using iSeries ODBC from Crystal Reports to access 
DB2 I would tell you not to do it because it's butt-slow. 

If you were asking about doing subfile-style inquiries in VB or VB.Net 
with iSeries ODBC, I would tell you go for it because you can get 
sub-second response times.

Prevailing wisdom from the ivory tower and the real world says to provide 
more detail about what you want to do specifically and we'll try to help. 

Otherwise take what you get with broad, generic answers :-)

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc. 
"Providing Your....iNFORMATION NOW!"
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 898-3038
Fax: (952) 898-1781
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT

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message: 1
date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 12:29:20 -0700
from: "Dave Odom" <Dave.Odom@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: Performance of ODBC vs. other access methods

Richard,

Your response to me:

This is one of those loaded questions that I have to answer:  "It

depends on what you want to do and how well your database is indexed". 

If you are doing lots of queries where there are existing indexes, the
performance can be sub-second. 

If you are doing lots of queries where there are no indexes it will be
slow as molasses. 

Tell us more about what you're trying to do and also start doing some 
real-world experimentation. 

No better way to learn than to get your feet wet. <<

Yes, very aware of all the "depends" but that doesn't answer my basic
questions which were:

"What's the prevailing wisdom backed up by real world experience when
using ODBC from whatever tool or programming language to access
DB2/400 or ORACLE versus using some other remote or distributed access 
method
such as DRDA, calls to stored procedures or API calls?   I've been
told that ODBC is a good performer but have my doubts.

What's your experience show vs Ivory Tower tests?"

Thanks,

Dave