Sun Microsystems introduced the JDBC driver and API in 1996 to allow Java programmers to interact with databases. The JDBC driver translates messages between the Java application and database using a specified protocol. There are four main types of JDBC drivers: Type 1 translates to ODBC, Type 2 uses native database APIs, Type 3 is all Java and uses a middleware server, and Type 4 also uses a proprietary protocol but is all Java. The basic JDBC process involves loading the driver, connecting to the database, executing SQL statements, processing result sets, and closing the connection.