What's new in this release?

Support and Certifications

Changes Since 8.0.2 GA

• 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 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 driver is enhanced to support Microsoft Entra ID authentication using user names and passwords. You can configure this feature using the updated Authentication Method (AuthenticationMethod), User Name (LogonID), and Password (Password) options, and the new Azure Tenant ID (AzureTenantID) option. See Microsoft Entra ID authentication for more information.

  • The driver has been enhanced to support Microsoft Entra ID authentication using service principal users. You can configure this feature using the updated Authentication Method (AuthenticationMethod), User Name (LogonID), and Password (Password) options, and the new Azure Tenant ID (AzureTenantID) option. See Microsoft Entra ID authentication for more information.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support the TLSv1.3 cryptographic protocol. As part of this enhancement, the default cryptographic protocols enabled by the driver have been updated to TLSv1.3 and TLSv1.2. See Crypto Protocol Version for more information.
  • 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.

  • The driver has been enhanced to support the Windows certificate store for TLS/SSL server authentication. See TLS/SSL server authentication for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support TLS/SSL server authentication for the applications deployed in a serverless environment. The driver stores the TLS/SSL certificates in memory and lets applications use TLS/SSL server authentication without storing the truststore file on the disk. To use this enhancement, specify the content of the certificate in the refreshed Trust Store (Truststore) connection option or the new SQL_COPT_INMEMORY_TRUSTSTORECERT pre-connection attribute. See Trust Store and Using SQL_COPT_INMEMORY_TRUSTSTORECERT for details.
  • The Batch Mechanism (BatchMechanism) connection option has been enhanced to support the native batch protocol for batch inserts. When BatchMechanism is set to 4 (NativeBatch), the driver uses the native batch protocol for the insert operation of all batched parameters. See Batch Mechanism for details.
  • The Use Declare Fetch (UseDeclareFetch) and Fetch Size (FetchSize) connection options have been added to the driver. The Use Declare Fetch option determines whether the driver attempts to return a result set in a single fetch or across multiple fetches. If multiple fetches are used, the setting of the Fetch Size option determines the size of each fetch. For large result sets, retrieving rows in multiple fetches can improve response time and thereby prevent possible timeouts. See Use Declare Fetch and Fetch Size for details.
    Note: B6 is an alias for the Use Declare Fetch connection option and Fetch and A7 are the aliases for the Fetch Size connection option.
  • 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.
• Changed Behavior

  • Microsoft has rebranded Azure Active Directory as Microsoft Entra ID. As a result, the driver documentation has been updated to reflect this name change.

  • 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.
  • The default values for the Unbounded Numeric Precision (UnboundedNumericPrecision) and Unbounded Numeric Scale (UnboundedNumericScale) connection options have been changed to -1. Now, by default, the driver will return the values from the unbounded NUMERIC columns without modifying their precision and scale. See Unbounded Numeric Precision and Unbounded Numeric Scale for details.

Changes for 8.0.2 GA

• Driver Enhancements
  • The driver has been enhanced to support stored procedures for PostgreSQL 11 and later.
  • The Call Escape Behavior (CallEscapeBehavior) connection option has been added to the driver. The driver determines whether to call a user-defined function or a stored procedure based on the value specified for this connection option. See Call Escape Behavior for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support certificate-based authentication. It uses TLS/SSL protocol for authentication and authenticates the client to the server if the TLS/SSL client certificate is issued by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) and the Common Name (cn) attribute of the TLS/SSL client certificate matches the database user name. Two new connection options, Client SSL Certificate (ClientSSLCertificate) and Client SSL Key (ClientSSLKey), have been added to support this authentication method. See Certificate-based authentication for details.
  • 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 driver has been enhanced to support the scram-sha-256-plus authentication method, which uses channel binding for establishing a secure connection with PostgreSQL (v11.0 and higher).
  • The driver has been enhanced with the new Batch Mechanism (BatchMechanism) connection option, which specifies the preferred mechanism for executing batch insert operations. By setting Batch Mechanism to 2 (MultiRowInsert) or 3 (Copy), the driver can achieve substantial performance gains when performing batch inserts. The default setting is BatchMechanism=3 (Copy). See Batch Mechanism for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support the following data types: Citext, Float, and Tinyint. See Data Types for details.
  • The drivers using base version B0649 and later have been enhanced to include timestamp in the internal packet logs by default. If you want to disable the timestamp logging in packet logs, set PacketLoggingOptions=1. The internal packet logging is not enabled by default. To enable it, set EnablePacketLogging=1.
  • The Driver Manager for UNIX/Linux has been enhanced to support setting the Unicode encoding type for applications on a per connection basis. By passing a value for the SQL_ATTR_APP_UNICODE_TYPE attribute using SQLSetConnectAttr, your application can specify the encoding at connection. This allows your application to pass both UTF-8 and UTF-16 encoded strings with a single environment handle. The valid values for the SQL_ATTR_APP_UNICODE_TYPE attribute are SQL_DD_CP_UTF8 and SQL_DD_CP_UTF16. The default value is SQL_DD_CP_UTF8.
  • A Power BI connector is now included with the product package. You can use this connector to access your PostgreSQL data with Power BI. See Power BI (Windows only) for details.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support Select queries with parameterized arrays.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support md5 and scram-sha-256 authentication methods.
  • The driver has been enhanced to support materialized views and foreign tables.
• Changed Behavior
  • For PostgreSQL 9.0 and later, the driver behavior has been updated to support executing multiple prepared statements in a single query that contain inserts for BYTEA values. However, for versions earlier than PostgreSQL 9.0, this functionality is not supported and the driver returns an error.
  • The default value for the Batch Mechanism (BatchMechanism) connection option has been changed to 3 (Copy). The driver now, by default, uses the PostgreSQL COPY command to insert rows into the target table. It allows the driver to achieve substantial performance improvements over 1 (SingleRowInsert) when performing batch inserts. See Batch Mechanism for details.
  • Support has been deprecated for HP-UX IPF and HP-UX PA-RISC platforms.
  • The following Windows platforms have reached the end of their product lifecycle and are no longer supported by the driver:

    • Windows 8.0 (versions 8.1 and higher are still supported)
    • Windows Vista (all versions)
    • Windows XP (all versions)
    • Windows Server 2003 (all versions)