Type 1 Drivers

Bridge drivers such as the jdbc-odbc bridge. They rely on an intermediary such as ODBC to transfer the SQL calls to the database and also often rely on native code. It is not a serious solution for an application

Type 2 Drivers

Use the existing database API to communicate with the database on the client. Faster than Type 1, but need native code and require additional permissions to work in an applet. Client machine requires software to run.

Type 3 Drivers

JDBC-Net pure Java driver. It translates JDBC calls to a DBMS-independent network protocol, which is then translated to a DBMS protocol by a server. Flexible. Pure Java and no native code.

Type 4 Drivers

Native-protocol pure Java driver. It converts JDBC calls directly into the network protocol used by DBMSs. This allows a direct call from the client machine to the DBMS server. It doesn?t need any special native code on the client machine.

Advantages and Disadvantages of all Drivers

Handling SQL Exceptions