	Product(s):	APM Implementation and Performance Management
	Version(s):	7.5 +
	Environment:	N\A
	Area:	N/A
	Subarea:	N\A

Recommendation to switch from ODBC “Native Client 11.0”

FYI

Microsoft is no longer updated the SQL server native driver, and instead they are recommending the newer Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server or Microsoft ODBC Driver 13 for SQL Server.

The newer ODBC driver has better resiliency against network blips and disconnects, and as of R7.5 can be used with APM. There was a small change that had to be made in 7.5 to enable it. 7.6 was officially ‘certified’ with ODBC Driver 11, and I’ve asked for the documentation to be updated in 7.7 to more strongly reflect this. Going forward, we should be using this ODBC driver and no longer using the older Native driver.

We have been seeing ODBC connection errors at some customer sites, and have been recommending this driver to help resolve some of these issues. Additionally, there have been some improvements in the APM 7.6 release to better respond to disconnects that the ODBC driver itself cannot handle.

One last item on the topic of ODBC – we now have the ability to specify a connection string directly when setting up APM, not having to bother creating and maintaining a DSN. The format for the connection string is: Driver={ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server};Server=<ServerName>;Database=<DBName>. It is recommended to use this going forward, for a couple of reasons:

1. It eliminates the confusion of an additional layer of indirection. I’ve seen countless times where users (or myself) have had to open up the DSN to find that it is pointing at a different database than the name seemed to indicate.

2. When packaging and deploying a thick client, the connection string can be specified directly so there is no need to manually configure a DSN

Microsoft ODBC Drivers 11 and 13 supported in R7.5

FYI

See Also