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Remote Deployment Database Administration
If you are running Sapphire/Web on a different machine than that on which the Web server is running, you must set up the DSNs on both boxes to be identical. Also, if you are using them, you will need ODBC drivers installed on both machines. Finally, if you are using files or desktop databases as the actual data source, you may need to ensure that the files and directories are available on both machines. Using ODBC, applications can access data stored in a variety of personal computer, minicomputer, and mainframe DBMSs.
Using ODBC, Sapphire can work with Paradox, Access, DB2, Lotus Notes and other databases without having to develop against the native APIs of these vendors. There are, however, potential problems with the use of ODBC. You could obtain an ODBC driver from vendor X for a DBMS Z and a driver from vendor Y for the same DBMS. These drivers could behave differently in some very subtle ways. In fact, if you obtain a new version of the driver from vendor X, it too may be different from the last version. Although ODBC does have the concept of conformance levels, these are broad categories that fail to provide the detail needed to evaluate such variations. ODBC does provide many features so that the application developer can discover such variations, but no programming technique will get blood from a stone!
Some ODBC drivers are implemented inefficiently. To use ODBC for network DBMSs, you must install and define the ODBC driver and DSNs on each box. You may also need to install and configure the DBMSs client network libraries.
Because of the versatility and DBMS independence of ODBC, Sapphire includes it in its database connectivity.
For instructions on installing new versions of the ODBC Configuration Manager, or on installing the ODBC drivers from various vendors before using them as data sources, see the documentation delivered with the various packages.
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