[thelist] database connection across different IP's

Ken Schaefer ken at adOpenStatic.com
Tue Feb 18 20:46:12 CST 2003


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: "Paul Bennett" <paul at teltest.com>
Subject: Re: [thelist] database connection across different IP's


: > Paul...
: >
: > Just to add a bit of clarification:
: >
: > If they are using Access as their DB backend, you won't be able to query
: > the DB from the remote web server like you can with MS SQL or mySQL.
: > Access
: > does not have a "listener" to interface with the DB.
:
: so to interface with the db, the db would have to be on the same MACHINE
: as the scripting language querying it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not necessarily - it needs file system access to the .mdb file (since Access
is file based - there is no "server" component that can listen for incoming
requests.

So, it is theoretically possible to do provide a path like
\\otherServer\share\ourDatabase.mdb
However (!), since one machine is outside the firewall, and the machine the
database is hosted on is inside the firewall, doing something like this
involves opening up SMB, or NetBT or similar on your firewall. This is a
huge, huge no-no.

Better would be a process that can *push* the data from inside the firewall
to the webserver outside the firewall. Assuming you have Windows machines,
you can use the Windows Task Scheduler to run a batch file (to copy the
whole .mdb file) -or- a .vbs file (just put some VBScript into a file,
instantiate some ADO objects etc) to create the necessary data and FTP or
similar to the webserver.

Even better would be having proper database servers that can automatically
replicate data. However, it seems that $$ is a problem here.

Cheers
Ken




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