Java + SQL Server - a viable solution?

Question

I'm going to start a new project - rewriting an existing system (PHP + SQL Server) from scratch because of some very serious limitations by design.

We have some quite good knowledge of SQL Server (currently we're using SQL Server 2000 in existing system) and we would like to employ its newer version (2008 I guess) in our new project.

I am really fond of technologies that Java offers - particularly Spring Framework and Wicket and I am quite familiar with Java from others projects and assignments before. Therefore, we consider using Java and Microsoft SQL Server.

There are two JDBC drivers for SQL Server - jTDS and Microsoft's one - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937724.aspx. I think we should test both of them.

Are there any limitations in such solution I should know of? Has someone experience with such a technology combination?

Answer 1

I don't know about Java and 2008... but you shouldn't have too much trouble with Java and SQL2000. As lubos suggested, you'd be doing yourself a favour to look at c# but if you're much more comfortable with Java then there shouldn't be any real limitations as the JDBC connector is supported by Microsoft

Answer 2

I've worked on a project using MSQL Server in conjunction with a Java Stack. It works very well and as long, since JDBC shouldn't really care about your database. We used ehcache together with Hibernate and had problems with the MS JDBC Driver, so we switched to jtds and it works really good.

It's quite a while ago, so you still might wanna give the MS driver a chance...

Answer 3

We've been running an application using Hibernate talking to multiple remote MSQL Server instances for a few years now and we also switched to the jTDS driver early on after a few issues with the M$ driver. Since the switch we haven't had any issues at all. However, it's not a complicated application so it doesn't use any LOB's. Hope that helps.

Answer 4

jTDS is excellent. I've been using it for years without issue in high-availability production environments.

Answer 5

I would lean towards the jTDS driver. The MSSQL driver has a limitation where you cannot re-read the same column twice. This happens frequently when using Hibernate.

Answer 6

Check this article HOW TO: SQL in JAVA for details on how to connect to SQL Server database from C#.NET database applications as well as Java database applications. It also describes how to pass embedded SQL queries (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE), calling stored procedures, pass parameters etc.

Answer 7

i am working on Java with Sql server 2005, could you please tell me what is the exact parameter type on sql server and java as well to get the set of records which are returned by the procedure as out parameter. I m using struts 2.0 framework.