RE: ODBC from IFS

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: McIntyre Don
>
> Yes, Datadirect has what I need, but I would have to
> buy a driver for each database at about $8000 per
> driver.  That's why in my earlier statement I said
>
> "yet another purchase to enable the iSeries to do the
> job that can be done by a PC on our server farm"

Don, you've got a database with no central control.  And while I sympathize
with your desire to access every database from the iSeries, I don't see that
happening anytime soon.  Why don't they standardize on SQL Server, instead
of a disparate group of databases?

Anyway, the issue is not whether the job can be done by the iSeries, but
whether the database vendor supports non-Windows platforms.  It's up to the
database vendor to provide drivers.

So now it's a business decision.  If a given database vendor does not
support universal access, then anybody who uses that database is locking
themselves into a proprietary (in this case, Windows) solution.

So far, I have found that Cloudscape (Informix) and Oracle have Type 4 JDBC
drivers.  Who else do you need?  I notice you list dBase(!!!) and MS Access.
Is this really mission critical data?  If so, why is it in single-user
databases like dBase and Access?  I don't know of any good free dBase ODBC
drivers.  Access, of course, has one since it's a Microsoft product, but I
wouldn't be the only one to tell you horror stories of storing mission
critical data in an Access database and then opening it up to multi-user
access.

My suggestion is that you might want to think about consolidating your data
into a single database technology.  This has a number of advantages, from
backup to scalability to interaction to security.

On the other hand, if you insist on storing mission critical data on
databases that provide only Windows access, then you could conceivably write
your own universal driver that sits on one of your Microsoft PCs.  This
driver would accept requests from the iSeries, process them, and send the
results back to the iSeries.  This would probably be quite a nifty product!

Hmmm.  That's a real thought.  A Type 4 JDBC driver whose sole purpose is to
talk to a Windows ODBC client.  Verrrrrrrrrrrry interesting...

Joe