# JDBC drivers overview

Before a JDBC application connects to a database, it must cause the proper JDBC driver to be loaded in the Java session.

Derby provides the following JDBC drivers for use with the Derby database engine:

- org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver

  For embedded environments, when Derby runs in the same JVM as the application. This is commonly referred to as the embedded drvier.

- org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDriver

  For client/server environments that use the Derby Network Server. This is commonly referred to as the Network Client driver.

You can use `ij` to connect to any database that supplies a JDBC driver. For those databases, you would need to load the supplied JDBC driver.

Parent topic: JDBC connection basics