Zoho launches SQL cloud data access service

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 03 December 2008 12:54

Business IT - Networking

Cloud computing and SaaS provider Zoho has developed a new service that aims to bridge the divide between data stored in the cloud and traditional locally stored applications.

Zoho has announced Zoho CloudSQL, a middleware service that uses SQL (Structured Query Language) to connect business data stored in Zoho with traditional, on-premises applications as well as other SaaS offerings.

According to Zoho, CloudSQL middleware technology makes Zoho the first company to let users store and interact with business data stored in the cloud via SQL.

Zoho Reports is the first service to adopt Zoho CloudSQL, with other Zoho services, including Zoho CRM, planned to adopt the technology in the near future.

In addition, Zoho Reports has added an HTTP-based API that lets users interact with their data programmatically.

While programmatically accessing data in the cloud is not new, most services require developers to learn another language or access method to be able to interact with it.

“SQL is a very useful, powerful and widely used language — there's no need to reinvent the wheel,” said Rodrigo Vaca, director of marketing at Zoho.
 
“Zoho CloudSQL demonstrates Zoho's commitment to enable our customers to easily access and extend our services to suit their business needs,” said Vaca.

“Customers can use this new technology to seamlessly blend the data and applications they have on-site with the data and applications they have in the cloud.”

According to Zoho, its new middleware supports all major SQL dialects, including ANSI, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Informix database dialects.

Zoho also provides a JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) driver for Zoho CloudSQL, with an ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) driver to be available shortly.