A database may be accessed by creating a virtualized environment on a computer system and instantiating a driver for a database within the virtualized environment. A first execution thread within the virtualized environment is created and a first unique identifier is associated with the first execution thread within the driver for the database. A first connection to the database is then opened from within the first execution thread using the first unique identifier. A first native program containing embedded structured query language (SQL) statements is executed within the first execution thread and the first native program is provided with access to said database using the first connection to said database.