Registering an ADO.NET provider as a SQL Server 2008 Linked Server Provider

• mfreeman 45141

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  May 27, 2010 at 8:49 am

  #223047

  We need to create a Linked Server connection to an ancient database and the only provider we've been able to find that might work is an ADO.NET provider. When we install it, this provider does not appear in the list of Linked Server Providers in SSMS. Is there a way to register such a provider manually?

  Specifically, we need to connect from SQL Server 2008 to a very old version of the Borland/Embarcadero InterBase database. The only Linked Server Provider is from a small company in Russia, and they don't support 2008, only 2005. Our testing confirms that it won't work properly for 2008, and they have no plans to enhance it. We found the "Borland Data Provider (BDP) for the Microsoft .NET Framework", but when we install it, it does not appear in the list of Linked Server Providers in SSMS. We were hoping that since SQL Server 2008 supports using .NET code in stored procedures that we might be able to leverage an ADO.NET provider to enable a SQL Server stored procedure to access the Interbase database.

  Does anyone know of a way to do that?

  Thanks,

  Mark