Chapter 14. Datasource Management

The JDBC API is the standard that defines how databases are accessed by Java applications. An application configures a datasource that references a JDBC driver. Application code can then be written against the driver, rather than the database. The driver converts the code to the database language. This means that if the correct driver is installed, an application can be used with any supported database.

The JDBC 4.0 specification is defined here: http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=221.

To get started with JDBC and datasources, see the section about JDBC Drivers.