About Data Source Platform Types

EclipseLink abstracts the details of your underlying data source using data source platform classes. A data source platform is owned by your project's Login.

To configure most platform options, you must use an amendment method, or a preLogin event listener.

EclipseLink interacts with databases using structured query language (SQL). Because each database platform uses its own variation on the basic SQL language, EclipseLink must adjust the SQL it uses to communicate with the database to ensure that the application runs smoothly.

The type of database platform you choose determines the specific means by which the EclipseLink runtime accesses the database, including the type of Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) driver to use. JDBC is an application programming interface (API) that gives Java applications access to a database. EclipseLink relational projects rely on JDBC connections to read objects from, and write objects to, the database. EclipseLink applications use either individual JDBC connections or a JDBC connection pool, depending on the application architecture.

EclipseLink provides a variety of database-specific platforms that let you customize your project for your target database. For a list of supported database platforms, see Database Support.

Specify your database platform at the project level for all sessions, or override this project-level configuration at the session level.