Starting with version 16.20, the new Teradata ODBC Driver supports the industry standard iODBC Driver Manager and unixODBC Driver Manager on Unix platforms, in addition to the DataDirect Driver Manager.
Be aware that different driver managers may have different behaviors within the standards of ODBC. With the new Teradata ODBC Driver, this same driver can be used with any of the driver managers mentioned above. Applications and libraries no longer need to be rebuilt for specific Driver Managers, as the new driver now works with more driver managers. Some of the benefits of these driver managers are listed below.
Many applications are written to be used with common driver managers such as iODBC and unixODBC.
Performance gains in reopening connections using the Driver Managers’ connection pooling is available through iODBC and unixODBC. See the respective driver manager documentation for more information.
Also, both driver managers are open source and freely available, making them very popular. You can take advantage of these driver managers, which means it will be easier to connect to Teradata through languages like Perl, Python, PHP, R, and so on.
Tools built to connect these languages to an ODBC driver were typically designed with the unixODBC Driver Manager or iODBC Driver Manager in mind. With the new Teradata ODBC driver, these no longer need to be rebuilt purposely for the DataDirect Driver Manager in order to access the Teradata database.
If you need more information about connecting with Perl, Python, and other supported languages, visit the Teradata Community. Use keywords like ODBC PERL or ODBC Python to search on how to use Perl or Python through the new Teradata ODBC driver.
For installation and use of iODBC and unixODBC driver managers, see Configuration for UNIX/Linux Systems.