Java + SQL Server - a viable solution?

Question

I'm going to start a new project - rewriting an existing system (PHP + SQL Server) from scratch because of some very serious limitations by design.

We have some quite good knowledge of SQL Server (currently we're using SQL Server 2000 in existing system) and we would like to employ its newer version (2008 I guess) in our new project.

I am really fond of technologies that Java offers - particularly Spring Framework and Wicket and I am quite familiar with Java from others projects and assignments before. Therefore, we consider using Java and Microsoft SQL Server.

There are two JDBC drivers for SQL Server - jTDS and Microsoft's one - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937724.aspx. I think we should test both of them.

Are there any limitations in such solution I should know of? Has someone experience with such a technology combination?

Answer 1

I've worked on a project using MSQL Server in conjunction with a Java Stack. It works very well and as long, since JDBC shouldn't really care about your database. We used ehcache together with Hibernate and had problems with the MS JDBC Driver, so we switched to jtds and it works really good.

It's quite a while ago, so you still might wanna give the MS driver a chance...

Answer 2

I don't know about Java and 2008... but you shouldn't have too much trouble with Java and SQL2000. As lubos suggested, you'd be doing yourself a favour to look at c# but if you're much more comfortable with Java then there shouldn't be any real limitations as the JDBC connector is supported by Microsoft