Driver Profiles define the interface and connectivity 'glue' specific to a data source. They outline which tables, views, and stored procedures are available and include code for reading, writing, and updating data.

Each API Driver installs with a set of Driver Profiles. These Driver Profiles can be used as-is or they can be easily customized and extended by a developer.

• A powerful driver core that can be easily extended through Driver Profiles.
• Access to any installed Driver Profile.
• An easy-to-use interface that you can extend with new Driver Profiles.

Building high-performance connectivity solutions is easy using the API Driver.

Driver Profiles are designed to be accessible from any API Driver. As a result, creating a Driver Profile for a data source is like creating an entire array of Drivers for that source. By creating Driver Profile 'XYZ', developers will instantly deliver XYZ ODBC Driver, XYZ JDBC Driver, XYZ ADO.NET Provider, ... and even an XYZ Excel Add-In! The ability to create any driver enables you to access your data source from the application of your choice. You can also use standard components to develop your own applications.

With API Drivers it is possible to connect to just about any application, database, or Web service. Developers can create new drivers that provide access to proprietary databases, cloud services, custom databases, 'big-data' / NoSQL, applications, all kinds of Web APIs & SDKs, and more. Depending on the complexity of the underlying data source, it is often possible to have a functional driver in under a week.

Developers can take advantage of a comprehensive set of resources for driver development, including:

• A set of full-featured Driver Profiles with full source that highlight how easy it is to create new drivers.
• Extensive technical documentation providing comprehensive information needed to support driver development.
• Straightforward and easy-to-use facilities for connecting to Web service APIs (SOAP, REST, JSON, ODATA, POX etc.)
• Outstanding technical support backed by an expert team of support professionals.

Depending on the complexity of the underlying data source, building a new driver can be as simple as a few lines of XML for a standard API or a more elaborate effort for custom binary and/or Web APIs that do not rely on standard protocols.

Our Drivers include thousands of hours of development, QA, and marketing resources to bring to market. The API Drivers allow us to provide the same powerful driver interface in a fraction of the time.

We may build Driver profiles for sources that we have limited vertical experience with. We may also build new Driver profiles to help us gauge market demand for a more complete driver.

• Other CData Drivers are fixed (one data source).
• API Drivers have less source-specific help documentation (but you may not need it).
• Driver Profiles are not typically as comprehensive as our other Drivers. They may not include a complete range of tables or fields.

We offer a range of custom development solutions, such as building a driver that supports integration with your data source or adding a feature to an existing driver. We offer off-the-shelf integration tools (ADO.NET, JDBC, ODBC, etc.) that can be used to build the kind of integration you are looking for. The API Driver is different from any of our other tools: Developers can leverage existing skills against any API. Profiles make it easy to build your own driver and/or extend the ones that we provide. See the help documentation to get started writing a profile. See Custom Development Services for more information about custom development and partnerships.

No, for many self-service business intelligence and analytics tools, you can simply specify which profile to use, the login credentials and other connection properties, and then connect. Applications such as Microsoft Power Query, Cognos, Tableau, and Filemaker Pro provide a visual workflow that does not require SQL. As you drag and drop tables and columns, the application will automatically generate SQL queries and use the driver's SQL engine to process them. The API Driver supports a functional subset of SQL that makes using these applications seamless. Queries are executed directly to the data source, which does not make multiple copies of your data and also improves performance.

API Drivers provide the interfaces to enable bi-directional access to underlying data. It is up to the individual Driver Profile to implement CRUD capabilities through these interfaces.

The API Drivers support a functional, familiar subset of the standard SQL grammar. It does not support data definition language (DDL) constructs as table structures are explicitly created and exposed through Provider Extensions.

For more details on the supported SQL, please refer to the API Driver help documentation.

You can connect to the API Driver just like other database Drivers. Specify the Profile and other connection properties and then connect. The Driver Profile for any data source is easily included as a parameter of the connection string.

The API Driver supports the standard technologies for data integration: IDEs and BI, Analytics, Reporting, and ETL applications provide built-in support for these technologies. If you are using an existing profile or creating a new one, you can follow the standard procedure to connect. See the Knowledge Base and API Driver help documentation for guidance on connecting to your data source from your application.

Yes, you can use the API Driver to accomplish ETLs (extract/transform/load). You can use the driver to extract from one data source and load it into another. Use an ETL tool to transform the data.

The API Driver enables you to choose your ETL tool. The API Driver also enables connectivity to many more applications in addition to ETL applications.

The API Driver also supports HTTP authentication: Basic, Digest, NTLM, and OAuth.

You can use the API Driver to connect over SSL/TLS. You can also connect through proxies, firewalls, and SSH.

The API Driver provides a number of performance features:

• Caching: The API Driver executes queries directly to the data source by default: This enables you to work with the most up-to-date data. To reduce the load on network resources, the API Driver offers caching features that provide you with a means to benefit from working with a local copy, while automatically keeping your data current, along with the control to fine-tune performance.
• High-performance XML and JSON parser: The API Driver uses the same parsing libraries as other CData drivers, which benefit from more real-world trials than any other drivers.
• Managed code: The API Driver runs on a managed codebase that provides memory management and garbage collection through the .NET Framework and the JVM. Drivers written in lower-level languages, such as C++, can see performance hits from memory fragmentation and other factors.