ARROW-17731: [Website] Add Flight SQL JDBC blog post

_posts/2022-11-01-arrow-flight-sql-jdbc.md

@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Expanding Arrow's Reach with a JDBC Driver for Arrow Flight SQL"
+date: "2022-11-01 09:00:00 -0500"
+author: pmc
+categories: [application]
+---
+<!--
+{% comment %}
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+limitations under the License.
+{% endcomment %}
+-->
+
+We're excited to announce that as of version 10.0.0, the Arrow project
+now includes a [JDBC][jdbc] driver [implementation][impl] based on
+[Arrow Flight SQL][flight-sql].  This is courtesy of a software grant
+from [Dremio][dremio-arrow], a data lakehouse platform. Contributors
+from Dremio developed and open-sourced this driver implementation, in
+addition to designing and contributing Flight SQL itself.
+
+Flight SQL is a protocol for client-server database interactions.  It
+defines how a client should talk to a server and execute queries,
+fetch result sets, and so on.  Note that despite the name, Flight SQL
+is *not* a SQL dialect, or even specific to SQL itself.  Underneath,
+it builds on [Arrow Flight RPC][flight], a framework for efficient
+transfer of Arrow data across the network.  While Flight RPC is
+flexible and can be used in any type of application, from the
+beginning, it was designed with an eye towards the kinds of use cases
+that Flight SQL supports.
+
+With this new JDBC driver, applications can talk to any database
+server implementing the Flight SQL protocol using familiar JDBC APIs.
+Underneath, the driver sends queries to the server via Flight SQL and
+adapts the Arrow result set to the JDBC interface, so that the
+database can support JDBC users without implementing additional APIs
+or its own JDBC driver.
+
+## Why use JDBC with Flight SQL?
+
+JDBC offers a row-oriented API, which is opposite of Arrow's columnar
+structure.  However, it is a popular and time-tested choice for many
+applications.  For example, many business intelligence (BI) tools take
+advantage of JDBC to interoperate generically with multiple databases.
+An Arrow-native database may still wish to be accessible to all of
+this existing software, without having to implement multiple client
+drivers itself.  Additionally, columnar data transfer alone can be a
+[significant speedup][hannes] for analytical use cases.
+
+This JDBC driver implementation demonstrates the generality of Arrow
+and Flight SQL, and increases the reach of Arrow-based applications.
+Additionally, an [ODBC driver implementation][dremio-odbc] based on
+Flight SQL is also available courtesy of Dremio, though it is not yet
+part of the Arrow project due to dependency licensing issues.
+
+Now, a database can support the vast body of existing code that uses
+JDBC or ODBC, as well as Arrow-native applications, just by
+implementing a single wire protocol: Flight SQL.  Some projects
+instead do things like reimplementing the Postgres wire protocol to
+benefit from its existing drivers.  But for Arrow-native databases,
+this gives up the benefits of columnar data.  On the other hand,
+Flight SQL is:
+
+1. Columnar and Arrow-native, using Arrow for result sets to avoid
+   unnecessary data copies and transformations;
+2. Designed for implementation by multiple databases, with high-level
+   C++ and Java libraries and a Protobuf protocol definition; and
+3. Usable both through APIs like JDBC and ODBC thanks to this software
+   grant, as well as directly (or via [ADBC][adbc]) for applications
+   that want columnar data.
+
+## Getting Involved
+
+The JDBC driver was merged for the [Arrow 10.0.0 release][TODO], and
+the [source code][impl] can be found in the Arrow repository.
+Official builds of the driver are [available on Maven Central][TODO].
+Dremio is already making use of the driver, and we're looking forward
+to seeing what else gets built on top.  Of course, there are still
+improvements to be made.  If you're interested in contributing, or
+have feedback or questions, please reach out on the [mailing list][ml]
+or [GitHub][github].
+
+To learn more about when to use the Flight SQL JDBC driver vs the
+Flight SQL native client libraries, see this section of Dremio's
+presentation, [“Apache Arrow Flight SQL: a universal standard for high
+performance data transfers from databases”][dremio-presentation]
+(starting at 22:23).  For more about how Dremio uses Apache Arrow, see
+their [guide][dremio-arrow].
+
+[adbc]: htttps://github.com/apache/arrow-adbc
+[dremio]: https://www.dremio.com/
+[dremio-arrow]: https://www.dremio.com/resources/guides/apache-arrow/
+[dremio-odbc]: https://docs.dremio.com/software/drivers/arrow-flight-sql-odbc-driver/
+[dremio-presentation]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q8AMrQV3vE&t=1343s
+[flight]: {{ site.baseurl }}/docs/format/Flight.html
+[flight-sql]: {{ site.baseurl }}/docs/format/FlightSql.html
+[github]: htttps://github.com/apache/arrow
+[hannes]: https://ir.cwi.nl/pub/26415
+[impl]: https://github.com/apache/arrow/tree/master/java/flight/flight-sql-jdbc-driver
+[jdbc]: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jdbc/overview/index.html
+[ml]: {% link community.md %}