The Data Access Handbook is co-authored by John Goodson, vice president and general manager of DataDirect Technologies, and Rob Steward, vice president of research and development at DataDirect Technologies.  As respected IT veterans, Goodson and Steward have nearly 40 years of combined experience developing data connectivity products and helping the world’s leading independent software vendors (ISVs) and in-house IT departments build faster, more reliable and more interoperable applications.  The authors are recognized as only a few experts in the world who can offer this level of detail and subject-area expertise. Goodson and Steward have worked closely with Sun Microsystems and Microsoft on the development and evolution of database connectivity standards including J2EE, JDBC, ADO.NET, ODBC and OLE DB.

Other textbooks offer guidance on how to tune databases for optimal performance, but The Data Access Handbook breaks new ground by tackling performance issues outside the database. By taking a detailed look at problems in the software that connects applications to databases, The Data Access Handbook illustrates how data connectivity is a critical design-time decision and offers software system architects and developers expert advice on how to optimize database applications and solve performance issues. Specifically, this book will help software architects, IT staff, database administrators and developers:

·        Understand the different components of database middleware that can cause performance issues

·        Design for optimal performance

·        Write good application code

·        Develop solid benchmarks that measure application performance

·        Effectively troubleshoot performance issues

Set realistic performance expectations

Take a look at Chapter 4 in the Resources section below.