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Answer Software
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ENQUIRE -- ODBC for
ENSCRIBE |
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The ENQUIRE product from Answer Software provides access through ODBC to data that resides in Enscribe files on HP/Tandem NSK (Non-Stop Kernal) systems. ENQUIRE strives to maintain the fundamental simplicity of ODBC without adding unnecessary complications such as intermediate servers or links to other databases. It takes only a matter of minutes to install the ENQUIRE client ODBC driver on your desktop Windows computer, and not much more to install the ENQUIRE data server on your NonStop server computer.
ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) was originally defined by Microsoft to provide a common way for their desktop applications, such as Microsoft Excel, Access and Query, as well as user applications written in scripting languages like Visual Basic, to query and retrieve data from a variety of database sources. It has since become the lingua franca of database access. Even with the appearance of many new data sources and data consuming applications, such as data warehouses and web-based data publishing tools, ODBC maintains its position in the center of it all. Most other data interchange standards, such as JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) and ADO (ActiveX Data Objects), maintain gateways to ODBC as well, so that if data can be made available through ODBC, it is safe to assume that it can be retrieved through most every other data interchange mechanism as well.
ODBC client queries for data are framed in terms of the SQL language. Enscribe is not a SQL database, but there are strong similarities. Enscribe files are like SQL tables. Records in Enscribe files are like rows in SQL tables. The fields in these records can generally be described with standard SQL datatypes and appear as columns in SQL tables.
An important function of ENQUIRE is to translate Enscribe data into SQL. ENQUIRE initially learns about your Enscribe database from dictionaries created with Enscribe DDL (Data Definition Language), a product supported by HP's NonStop division. If a DDL dictionary has been created for your Enscribe database, ENQUIRE will use it to infer a mapping between your Enscribe data and the SQL tables that appear to client applications. The DDL description is sufficient in many cases and no extra work is required to make your Enscribe files visible to ODBC clients.
Sometimes a more proactive translation is necessary. A common circumstance is when an Enscribe file contains binary data that does not correspond to a standard DDL datatype. For example, your database might contain date values that are represented by day counts based on an unusual base date. These cases are easily addressed by defining special purpose datatypes in ENQUIRE that translate application-specific source data into a standard SQL datatype for display in client applications.
A more complex case might be that the records in an Enscribe file have variable or complex structures. This data must somehow be mapped into the simple two-dimensional square structure of a SQL table before a desktop application can access it. There are many ways this mapping may be accomplished, such as displaying only common fields, using computed fields or having multiple views onto the same table. The best approach depends on the nature of your data and how you imagine it to be used in client applications.
The engine inside the ENQUIRE data server is an ORDBMS (object/relational database management system) named HyBase. HyBase's object-oriented environment is usually transparent to you with only the SQL features readily apparent to an ENQUIRE user. But HyBase's complete object language is vital for attacking the odd translation problem such as those previously mentioned. Arbitrarily complex user-defined datatypes, as well as computed mappings of whole records, may be implemented in a manageable and straightforward way using these object features so that no part of your legacy database is beyond the reach of your ODBC client applications.
In short, ENQUIRE makes your NonStop-based Enscribe data available to the widest possible range of applications and users through the use of ODBC. It is quick to install, easy to maintain, highly efficient in execution, yet flexible enough to support any unconventional data elements that may be lurking in your legacy database.
System requirements for ENQUIRE 1.0:
Client:
Windows 95, NT or later
3 megabytes of disk
Server:
HP/Tandem NSK (Guardian) D40 or later
20 megabytes of disk
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Download all Enquire files,
including documentation and executables, from A key value is required for execution. Please contact us at info@answersftwr.com for a demo key. |
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