Many Delphi applications still use the Borland Database Engine (BDE) technology for data access. Although this is an obsolete technology, effective tools for a smooth transition from the BDE to the newer dbExpress technology were never supplied with Delphi. dbExpress is available since Delphi 6, and considered robust and reliable since Delphi 7.


Having to carry the BDE's dead wood along prevents an application from working correctly on the latest versions of Windows and in particular environments such as Windows Terminal Services. Anyone who tried to do that knows all too well that making it work often requires all sorts of configuration tweaks and tricks. The ability to use an engine that's lightweight, up-to-date and simple to deploy and configure represents a clear advantage for people coming from a BDE experience. The only problem is the difficulty in converting (or rewriting) existing applications, which do work although they are technologically obsolete.


Thanks to the experience gained by porting several big BDE applications to dbExpress, Ethea is able to provide a library of components and development tools to support the conversion to dbExpress. Ethea also provides qualified consultancy services to help in the process. The fundamental idea behind this offering is that the application must be able to continue to work with the BDE during the porting and testing process.


InstantBDExpress is a dbExpress-based component library that emulates interface and behaviour of the BDE components, plus an array of techniques and methodologies to easily integrate these components in existing (possibly huge) applications. This combination of components and techniques allows to keep backward compatibility at the application level while switching data access libraries. This way of working will also allow developers to approach a new database through a gentler learning curve, continuing to use familiar tools and techniques where possible. InstantBDExpress allows access to all databases supported by dbExpress.