Universal Data Access Technology Blog

DataSpaces Bulletin: December issue now online!

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:09:00 GMT

The highly anticipated December 2008 issue of the DataSpaces Bulletin is now available!

This month's DataSpaces contains material of interest to the Virtuoso developer and UDA user community alike —

Introduction to Virtuoso Universal Server (Cloud Edition).
Links to Virtuoso and Linked Data mailing lists.
UDA license management tips and tricks.

Creating RSS Using SQLX

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 23:33:50 GMT

Here is a practical example of how to create RSS on the fly from SQL data sources leveraging Virtuoso 3.2's SQLX implementation.

This is further illuminates the content of my earlier post on this subject.

XML Development Hindered by Lack of Conformity to Data Connectivity Standards ?

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 23:14:55 GMT

I've just read an

HOWTO: Apache-PHP-ODBC on Mac OS X

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:39:28 GMT

There is a new HOWTO document that addresses an area of frequent confusion on Mac OS X, which is how do you build PHP with an ODBC data access layer binding ( iODBC variant) using Mac OS X Frameworks as opposed to Darwin Shared Libraries.

A Virtuoso of a Server

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:58:31 GMT

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: MARK GIBBS ON WEB APPLICATIONS

Today's focus: A Virtuoso of a server

By Mark Gibbs

One of the bigger drags of Web applications development is that building a system of even modest complexity is a lot like herding cats - you need a database, an applications server, an XML engine, etc., etc. And as they all come from different vendors you are faced with solving the constellation of integration issues that inevitably arise.

If you are lucky, your integration results in a smoothly functioning system. If not, you have a lot of spare parts flying in loose formation with the risk of a crash and burn at any moment.

An alternative is to look for all of these features and services in a single package but you'll find few choices in this arena.

One that is available and looks very promising is OpenLink's Virtuoso (see links below).

Virtuoso is described as a cross platform (runs on Windows, all Unix flavors, Linux, and Mac OS X) universal server that provides databases, XML services, a Web application server and supporting services all in a single package.

OpenLink's list of supported standards is impressive and includes .Net, Mono, J2EE, XML Web Services (Simple Object Application Protocol, Web Services Description Language, WS-Security, Universal Description, Discovery and Integration), XML, XPath, XQuery, XSL-T, WebDav, HTTP, SMTP, LDAP, POP3, SQL-92, ODBC, JDBC and OLE-DB.

Virtuoso provides an HTTP-compliant Web Server; native XML document creation, storage and management; a Web services platform for creation, hosting and consumption of Web services; content replication and synchronization services; free text index server, mail delivery and storage and an NNTP server.

Another interesting feature is that with Virtuoso you can create Web services from existing SQL Stored Procedures, Java classes,

C++ classes, and 'C' functions as well as create dynamic XML

documents from ODBC and JDBC data sources.

This is an enormous product and implies a serious commitment on the part of adopters due to its scope and range of services.

Virtuoso is enormous by virtue of its architectural ambitions, but actual disk requirements are

MySQL-ODBC Bridge SDK

Thu, 02 Oct 2003 18:20:42 GMT

What Is This?

The MySQL-ODBC SDK enables you to make MySQL specific applications database independent via ODBC without wholesale re-writes of your MySQL specific application code. Thus, applications that are written directly to the MySQL Call Level Interface now end up being database independent via ODBC, and usable against any ODBC accessible database (including MySQL).

Why Is It Important?

The Open-Source community is rapidly producing innovative applications and in many cases these applications sit atop relational database management systems. Traditionally and historically, the tendency has been to look to MySQL as the default relational database service for Open Source Applications (the "M" in LAMP) which is unfortunately retrogressive since the concept of database independence has long been addressed industry wide via APIs such as ODBC, JDBC, OLE DB, and more recently ADO.NET.

In some case the existence of these APIs has been unknown to Open Source developers prior to application development, and in other cases the complexity of a port from the MySQL API to ODBC ends up being too difficult. There are numerous reasons why you can't mandate MySQL or any other database engine for that matter to every potential user of an Open Source database centric application:

Compromises freedom of choice ("Freedom of Choice" is a central theme of the Open Source movement and concept)
Database vendor lock-in reduces the deployment scope of your application, and it also potentially impedes functionality growth (what happens when the underlying database lacks the functionality that you desire? And cannot or will not deliver an implementation within your time-frame?)
Cost-Effectiveness is an Open Source value proposition main stay, so asking potential users to acquire yet another database (the real costs aren't $0.00 as resources will be required for administration, installation, configuration etc.) when functional ODBC accessible relational databases exist in house is simply contradictory at the very least.

ODBC as a concept has always been designed to be database-independent; iODBC as an Open Source project was devised to ensure platform neutrality for ODBC (just as Mono is pursuing the same goals re. .NET). When you write an application using the ODBC API database interchangeablity becomes a reality (the worst thing that can happen to you is a dysfunctional driver which is replaceable). Read on..