1- Existing company usage

Many companies already use SQL databases for other purposes, and thus most IT departments already have a defined standard. Going along with your company's existing standard is usually recommended, as there will already be staff available who are knowledgeable about the system. Furthermore, you may be able to tie into your company's existing database system instead of maintaining your own.

2 - Price and Features

The fully supported databases shown above vary dramatically in price. Some systems can cost thousands of dollars, but may have a free "express" edition that will work perfectly well for your requirements. Others offer advanced features such as redundancy, which are either not offered or difficult to configure in the other systems. It is therefore important to clearly define the features and capabilities that you need.

3 - Most common among Inductive Automation users

Choosing a database that is commonly used by Inductive Automation users means that you are more likely to find examples and help in the Forum, among other benefits. The supported database list above is sorted according to our current user install base.

Can I connect using ODBC?

While it is indeed possible to connect to an ODBC data source using the JDBC-ODBC bridge, this is generally not advised. The bridge is designed to offer a minimal amount of functionality, and is considered a "transitional solution", meaning that it should only be used when JDBC is not available. In other words, if a JDBC option is available, ODBC should not be used.

Since most commercial databases offer JDBC drivers, transition is usually as simple as recreating your database connections inside of Ignition. The lack of a JDBC connection inside of Ignition does not necessarily indicate that JDBC isn't available for your particular database. Licensing restrictions sometime prevent the inclusion of drivers with 3rd-party software. Therefore, before using ODBC, due diligence should be taken to verify that no JDBC solution is available.

Translator Management

Database translators are managed in the Gateway from the Databases > Drivers > Translators tab. Ignition comes pre-configured with translators for the major supported databases, but you can edit and remove them, as well as create new translators. It is necessary to create a new translator only when adding a new JDBC driver for a database that does not share syntax with any of the existing translators.

Creating a New Translator

To add a new database translator to Ignition, do the following steps:

1. In Gateway on the Configure page, click on Databases > Drivers.
   The Database Drivers & Settings page is displayed.

2. Go to the Translators tab, find the orange arrow, and click on the Create new Database Translator... link.
   The New Database Translator page is displayed showing a list of all the translator properties.

3. Define the tokens used with the translator properties on the New Database Translator page.

   For most of the properties, you need to define special token markers to indicate places where other values are placed. For example, the default Create Table Syntax entry looks as follows:

   CREATE TABLE {tablename} ({creationdef}{primarykeydef})
   Where:tablename, creationdef, and primarykeydef are all tokens that are expanded. tablename is replaced directly with the table, creationdef is a list of columns, and primarykeydef is the phrase created by the Primary Key Syntax entry in the translator.
   The possible tokens are as follows:

   Token	Description
   tablename	The name of the table being created.
   indexname	The name of the index to create, when adding a column index to the table.
   primarykeydef	A clause that defines a primary key for a new table.
   creationdef	The list of columns to create in the table.
   alterdef	A list of columns to add/remove/modify in the table.
   columnname	The name of a column.
   type	The data type of a column.
   limit	The value of the limit clause.
   Other Properties
   Limit Position	Defines where the limit clause should be placed. Back, the limit is placed at the end of the query. Front, places it directly after the SELECT keyword.
   Column Quote Character	All columns are created and accessed with the defined quote, which tells the database to use a specific casing, as well as avoiding collisions between the column name and database keywords.
   Supports Returning Auto-generated Keys? / Fetch Key Query	Indicates whether the JDBC driver supports the return of generated keys. If the driver does not support this feature, the Fetch Key Query is used to retrieve the last key.
   Date Type Mapping
   All data types	The keywords that are used when creating columns of the given types.

4. Click the Create New Database Translator button, located at the very bottom of the page, to create the translator.