Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a widely accepted application programming interface (API) for database access. It is based on the Call-Level Interface (CLI) specifications from X/Open and ISO/IEC for database APIs and uses Structured Query Language (SQL) as its database access language.
Primarily implemented by Microsoft,
java came up with drivers to interface with ODBC through its JDBC-ODBC bridge. Though i wont say its faster than pure java drivers, it serves as a bridge for data access with say microsoft access, excel sheets...etc.. through a DSN created in ODBC configuration.
Hope this gets u going...
cheers,
mpr