Connecting to Remote Access Database

[Robert Atkinson]

Is it possible to connect to an Access database on a Windows box from VMS, using PHP?

Rob.

[Hoff]

In terms of the plumbing involved here, there are PHP connections into ODBC clients and there are ODBC clients for OpenVMS and ODBC clients can access ODBC servers on various platforms. If you're running behind the Apache (SWS) web server, the key logical names are APACHE$ODBC_SHR and APACHE$ODBC_PFX.

Attunity Connect formerly offered this with its On Platform package, and there is still a recipe describing the configuration and the sequence of getting from PHP behind Apache through to a remote database using ODBC. This in the Apache (SWS) documentation for OpenVMS.

EasySoft has (had?) an ODBC to ODBC bridge, allowing you to connect into an ODBC network when you didn't have the pieces on the local platform.

ODBC pieces I'm aware of are over in the OpenVMS FAQ, though it looks like I might need to update the ODBC references there for Attunity. (To quote the magic eight-ball, answer not clear.)

OpenAccessSoftware looks to have the right pieces, and documentation for OpenRDA posted. http://www.openaccesssoftware.com/index.asp

Oracle likely also has the right pieces for Rdb and Oracle around, too.

[Robert Atkinson]

Thanks Hoff.

We do run Attunity on the machine involved, but aren't currently licenced to access a remote machine with it.

I was thinking along the lines of setting up a DSN on the Windows machine and accessing it over some kind of IP connection.

I know this won't actually work, but I wondered if there was something similar. I guess the ODBC-ODBC tunnel software is the closest, but my pockets are shallow and requirement for the end application low!

Cheers, Rob.

[Hoff]

You can certainly set up your own ODBC-like communications implementation, but you'll end up managing and supporting it. Client-server is easy, but chasing the odd cases is an investment.

If this roll-your-own approach is of interest, look around for an open-source ODBC, and consider porting and integrating it.

If your budget is limited, I might well look at transferring XML data around. Basically creating a batch-oriented or near-line connection between the system(s). libxml2 is available for OpenVMS, though I definitely need to haul over another version of it.