Microsoft releases CTP of SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0

At this year's DrupalCon in San Francisco, Microsoft announced the release of a new SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 as a Community Technology Preview (CTP), the company's name for what other projects would normally refer to as a beta release. In a post on Microsoft's Port 25 blog, Peter Galli, Open Source Community Manager for Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group, says that the driver includes support for PHP Data Objects and that it "is a new technical bridge for PHP developers that will make it less complex for them to target multiple databases, and make it easier for PHP applications like the upcoming Drupal 7 release to interoperate smoothly with SQL Server 2005 and all later versions."

With the driver, PHP developers will be able to access SQL Server through PHP Data Objects (PDO), making it easier to access SQL Server features like business intelligence and reporting. It should also reduce the complexity of targeting multiple databases, while enabling PHP applications like the upcoming open source Drupal 7 content management system (CMS).

The company's goal with the CTP release is to give developers a chance to check out the tool and provide feedback before it's final release. The PDO driver is available for SQL 2005 and later. According to Galli, Drupal and e-commerce specialists Commerce Guys are also releasing the Drupal Database Abstraction Layer for SQL Server 2005 and later.

More details about the SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 can be found in a post on the SQL Server Driver for PHP Team Blog by Ashay Chaudhary, the SQL Server Driver for PHP Program Manager. The SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 CTP is available to download from the Microsoft Download Center. The final version of the SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 is expected to be released "in the second half of this year".

See also:

• Microsoft to help users migrate from MySQL to SQL Server, a report from The H.

(crve)