Installed applications use JDBC providers to interact with relational databases.
The JDBC provider object supplies the specific JDBC driver implementation class for access to a specific vendor database. To create a pool of connections to that database, you associate a data source with the JDBC provider. Together, the JDBC provider and the data source objects are functionally equivalent to the J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) connection factory, which provides connectivity with a non-relational database.
For a current list of supported providers, see the WebSphere Application Server prerequisite Web site. (Find the link at the bottom of this article.) For detailed descriptions of the providers, including the supported data source classes and their required properties, refer to Data source minimum required settings, by vendor .
See also Hardware and software requirements .