Todd Wright

A strong data foundation is the offensive line of AI—rarely celebrated, but absolutely essential to protecting performance, ensuring consistency and powering every winning play.

What exactly is a vector, and more importantly, why should you care? In simple terms, a vector is a numeric representation of data. For example, a paragraph of text, an image, or even a sound clip can be transformed into a vector, which is a series of numbers that capture its meaning, context or features. Vectors allow computers to “understand” unstructured data and compare it in ways that traditional databases cannot, both of which are foundational to AI.

The Progress DataDirect SQL Server ODBC driver demonstrates significant performance advantages in data connectivity, especially for large-scale, data-intensive analytics workloads. Rigorous benchmarks against Microsoft’s native driver and FreeTDS reveal substantial speed improvements, highlighting DataDirect’s suitability for enterprise environments demanding high speed and reliability.

The blog announces the release of OpenAccess SDK 9.0, highlighting its major advancements in secure, high-performance and standards-compliant data connectivity. Key features include critical security enhancements, streamlined deployment and support for cross-platform client access for ODBC, JDBC and ADO.NET environments, while promoting a "code once, connect everywhere" model.

The 2025 Progress Data Platform Summit in Washington, D.C. covered AI, data integration and responsible governance. Read about what you may have missed.

Discover how Microsoft Fabric's integrated platform and Synapse Endpoint simplify data management and analytics, while Progress DataDirect solutions enhance connectivity and performance.