Installed applications that must interact with relational databases use JDBC providers for data access.

The JDBC provider object supplies the specific JDBC driver implementation class for access to a specific vendor database. To create a pool of connections to that database, you associate a data source with the JDBC provider. Together, the JDBC provider and the data source objects are functionally equivalent to the J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) connection factory, which provides connectivity with a non-relational database.

The WebSphere Application Server prerequisite Web site has a current list of supported providers.

See also Hardware and software requirements for more information. For detailed descriptions of the providers, including the supported data source classes and their required properties, refer to Vendor-specific data sources minimum required settings.

Related concepts
Data sources
Connection factory

Related tasks
Configuring a JDBC provider and data source
Configuring a JDBC provider using the administrative console
Configuring a data source using the administrative console
Configuring a JDBC provider using scripting
Configuring new data sources using scripting
Configuring new WAS40 data sources using scripting
Creating and configuring a JDBC provider and data source using the Java Management Extensions API
Configuring data access for the Application Client
Migrating a Version 4.0 data access application to Version 6.0

Related reference
Vendor-specific data sources minimum required settings

Related information
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/doc/latest/prereq.html