To establish a connection to Sybase IQ, the client application carries out the following steps:
Locate the interface library. The client application must locate the ODBC driver or Embedded SQL interface library.
Assemble a list of connection parameters. Since connection parameters may be provided in several places, such as data sources, a connection string assembled by the application, and an environment variable, Sybase IQ assembles the parameters into a single list.
Locate a server. Using the connection parameters, Sybase IQ locates a database server on your machine or over a network.
Locate the database. Once it locates the server, Sybase IQ locates the database you are connecting to.
The following sections describe each of these steps in detail.