by Alex Pauncz | August 22, 2022

Why CData is the Undisputed Leader in Standards-Based Data Connectivity

CData Software has won our reputation as the undisputed leader in standards-based data connectivity. It’s why the biggest names in data have embedded CData Drivers into their platforms.

So many of the leading names in data now partner with CData that our breadth and depth of data connectivity is now a core requirement to compete in the marketplace.

How did a startup that only recently partnered with outside investors win in such a competitive space? The answer comes down to who we are.

CData is a company founded by technologists to serve innovators. We understand our customers can accept nothing but the highest standards in data connectivity, reliability, and support. In turn, we have staked our business on delivering measurably superior driver technology and exceptional customer experience.

CData delivers:

• The greatest breadth of connectivity anywhere,
• A demonstrably richer data experience than our competitors,
• Frictionless, developer-friendly data access in every popular IDE,
• Continuous maintenance and updates,
• And measurably better performance that outperforms even platform-native connectors.

And we do it all with exceptional support to guide you at every step of the way.

Real-Time Connectivity to 250+ Data Sources:

Between standards-based drivers and the pre-configured connectivity embedded in our API Driver, CData provides rich connectivity to more than 250 data sources, far more than any other vendor on the market. From Salesforce and NetSuite to SQL Server, Snowflake, SAP, and everything in between, we have you covered.

Universal Standards + Platform Adapters

CData Drivers are fully optimized for client connectivity though every major open database standard, enabling rich SQL-compliant data access. We provide drivers in JDBC, ODBC, ADO.NET and Python for all supported data sources. And we even offer native platform adapters and connectors for SSIS, Power BI, Tableau, and more.

Richer Data Experience

CData Drivers deliver the richest data experience on the market.

Extensive Metadata Support

By offering extensive metadata support, CData Drivers enable you to work with data in a granular way with every supported data source. This gives customers the ability to fully explore metadata from underlying data sources.

Bi-Directional Data Access — Create, Read, Update, Delete

While many data connectors offer read-only support, CData Drivers deliver full support for create, read, update, and delete operations (CRUD) whenever the underlying API allows. You can interact with the data presented by the CData Drivers as easily as you interact with a database.

Demonstrably Superior Performance

CData engineers have optimized our drivers for maximum performance all the way down to the socket level. This exceptional performance manifests in a number of ways. But don’t take our word for it – see the results of our million-row challenges and other head-to-head performance tests.

Blazing-Fast SQL 92 Engine with Query Pushdown

CData incorporates a blazing-fast SQL Engine that pushes down any operation it can to the underlying data source, relying on application providers' powerful server-side processing to handle complex requests for data. Whatever complexities aren't supported by the data source are processed client-side providing a seamless experience.

Maximized Resource Usage

CData Drivers make the most efficient use of client-side resources. This efficiency delivers faster speeds as our drivers process queries and ensures that the applications leveraging CData connectivity provide the very best user experience for working with data.

Configurable Smart Caching

Smart caching is a configurable option that works by storing queried data into a local database. Enabling smart caching creates a persistent local cache database that contains a replica of data retrieved from the remote source. The cache database is small, lightweight, blazing-fast, and it can be shared by multiple connections as persistent storage.

This powerful functionality increases application performance and allows applications to disconnect and continue limited functioning without writing code for additional local storage and/or data serialization/deserialization.

Frictionless Data Access for Every Application

With CData, the challenges of enabling connectivity with remote applications and databases are a thing of the past. Our SQL-based connectivity provides a frictionless experience for embedding – and we offer that connectivity natively for every major platform and development technology.

• ODBC Drivers are universally accessible and available for Windows, Mac, Unix/Linux, etc.
• JDBC Drivers integrate seamlessly with Eclipse, IntelliJ, NetBeans, and any Java/J2EE application.
• NET Providers integrate directly with Visual Studio and any other .NET application.
• Python Connectors enable data access in Pandas, SQLAlchemy, Dash, petl, and more.
• For some technology ISV’s, CData even delivers fully custom adapters with unique interfaces, customized for specific integrations.

Data Connectivity Doesn’t End When You Ship

The greatest challenge of building connectivity solutions isn’t actually building them; it’s keeping them working through never-ending change. We save development teams countless hours of maintenance headaches by ensuring that our drivers support:

• Every new API version for every data source,
• All security patches to keep your products safe,
• And updates to core underlying technologies, such as EF Core.

And we continuously deliver enhancements to improve your data experience. Bottom line, with CData, you’ll have the world’s most reliable partner to safeguard your connectivity.

Behind the Technology

At CData, we are fully focused on data connectivity. Our engineers are API experts, and have decades of experience in building, supporting, and maintaining embedded software technologies. We have our processes down to a science, consistently shipping drivers for new data sources every quarter.

We ship consistently. We maintain continuously. And we are here 24-7 for you.

Explore Our Drivers Today

Explore CData Drivers and get a 30-day free trial today. If you have any questions about connectivity, chat with one of our engineers. And if you’re a commercial application developer and want to bring connectivity to your solution, explore our embedded connectivity offering.