What's new in this release?

Support and certification

Changes since 8.0.0

• Driver Enhancements
  • The default version of the OpenSSL library has been upgraded to 3.5.6. As part of this upgrade, earlier version of the OpenSSL 3.0 library continues to be supported to provide the best protection for your data. The upgrade is available in the following OpenSSL library files:
    • Windows: ivopenssl.dll and ddopenssl.dll
    • Unix: ivopenssl.so and ddopenssl.so
  • The driver has been enhanced to support JWT (JSON Web Token) authentication for Azure apps connecting to Amazon Redshift. See JWT authentication for details.
  • The driver now supports SHA-256 in addition to MD5 for securing user ID and password credentials during basic authentication (AuthenticationMethod=0). See Basic authentication and Authentication Method for details.
  • The driver is now compiled with a Visual Studio 2022 compiler for the Windows platforms. As a result, you must have Microsoft Visual C/C++ runtime version 14.40.33810 or higher on your machine to run the driver.
  • The Show Selectable Tables (ShowSelectableTables) connection option has been added to the driver. It determines whether the driver returns metadata for all tables or only those for which the user has Select privileges. It can help the users with restricted select privileges retrieve metadata for the required tables. See Show Selectable Tables for details.
  • The default version of the OpenSSL library has been upgraded to 3.0. As part of this upgrade, earlier versions of the OpenSSL library are no longer supported to provide the best protection for your data. The upgrade is available in the following OpenSSL library files: xxopenssl30.dll (for Windows) and xxopenssl30.so [.sl] (for UNIX/Linux).

    The OpenSSL 3.0 library uses a set of shared libraries called providers to implement different types of cryptographic algorithms. The driver supports the following OpenSSL 3.0 providers: FIPS and default. See TLS/SSL server authentication and TLS/SSL client authentication for details.

  • A Password Encryption Tool, called ddencpwd, is now included with the product package. It encrypts passwords for secure handling in connection strings and odbc.ini files. At connection, the driver decrypts these passwords and passes them to the data source as required. See Password Encryption Tool (UNIX/Linux only) for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication. It allows administrators to centrally manage user permissions to Amazon Redshift. When Azure AD authentication is enabled, all communications to Amazon Redshift are encrypted. See Azure Active Directory authentication for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support the following data types: Float, Tinyint, Wchar, and Wvarchar.
  • The new AllowedOpenSSLVersions option allows you to determine which version of the OpenSSL library file the driver uses for data encryption.
• Changed Behavior
  • The TLSv1.1 and TLSv1.0 cryptographic protocols are now disabled by default and have been removed as selectable values for the Crypto Protocol Version (CryptoProtocolVersion) option on the Setup dialog. These protocols are no longer considered secure and, therefore, are no longer recommended for use. However, the driver still supports TLSv1.1 and TLSv1.0 for legacy servers that do not support more secure protocols. See Crypto Protocol Version for more information.
  • The Allowed OpenSSL Versions (AllowedOpenSSLVersions) connection option has been deprecated.
  • The product no longer includes version 1.1.1 of the OpenSSL library. The library will reach the end of its product life cycle in September 2023 and will not receive any security updates after that. Note that continuing to use the library after September 2023 can potentially expose you to security vulnerabilities.
    Note: As a result of this change, when installing a new version of the product, the installer program will automatically remove version 1.1.1 of the library from the install directory, which will impact all the DataDirect ODBC drivers installed on a machine. Therefore, if you are using multiple drivers, upgrade all your drivers to the latest version.
  • The product no longer includes version 1.0.2 of the OpenSSL library. The library has reached the end of its product life cycle and is not receiving security updates anymore. Note that continuing to use the library could potentially expose you to security vulnerabilities.
    Note: As a result of this change, when installing a new version of the driver, the installer program will automatically remove version 1.0.2 of the library from the install directory.
  • The crypto protocol versions prior to TLSv1 are no longer supported.

Changes for 8.0.0 GA

• Driver Enhancements
  • The driver is now compiled using Visual Studio 2015 for improved security.
  • Support for connecting to a proxy server through an HTTP connection. HTTP proxy support is configurable with five new connection options. See Proxy Host, Proxy Mode, Proxy Password, Proxy Port, and Proxy User for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support the TimestampTZ data type. See Data types and Fetch TSWTZ as Timestampfor details.
  • The new Fetch TSWTZ as Timestamp option allows you to determine whether the driver returns column values of the TimestampTZ data type as the ODBC data type SQL_TYPE_TIMESTAMP or SQL_VARCHAR. See Fetch TSWTZ as Timestamp for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support the HOUR, MINUTE, MONTH, QUARTER, SECOND, WEEK, and YEAR ODBC functions for improved support of third-party applications such as Tableau.
  • The driver includes a new Tableau data source file (Windows only) that provides improved functionality when accessing your data with Tableau. See Accessing data in Tableau (Windows only) for details.
  • The driver and Driver Manager have been enhanced to support UTF-8 encoding in the odbc.ini and odbcinst.ini files.

    Refer to Character encoding in the odbc.ini and odbcinst.ini files in Progress DataDirect for ODBC Drivers Reference for details.

• Changed Behavior
  • The default value for Crypto Protocol Version has been updated to TLSv1.2,TLSv1.1,TLSv1. This change improves the security of the driver by employing only the most secure cryptographic protocols as the default behavior. See Crypto Protocol Version for details.