[Info-vax] Remote Data Access via File Share, ODBC (was: Re: Command Procedure Pipe output to a variable)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-09-07 20:55:18 +0000, Arne Vajhj said:

> On 9/7/2021 4:40 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> On 2021-09-07 17:58:10 +0000, Simon Clubley said:
>> 
>>> One final question: If DAP would be so wonderful to the world in 
>>> general, then why isn't there a TCP/IP version of DAP ? (WebDAV doesn't 
>>> really count IMHO unless it's moved on recently). There's a 
>>> standardised TCP/IP version of every other application protocol.
>> 
>> The FAL/DAP analog is called ODBC, and the ODBC CLI API.
>> 
>> libferris (inactive) has the sorts of features that FAL/DAP might have 
>> had added, after substantial new development work.  Or Plan 9, the Unix 
>> analog to what DEC MICA was to OpenVMS, of course.
>> 
>> For those not needing ODBC or libferris or ilk, SMB and other shares 
>> meet the requirements for many if not most users.
>> 
>> VSI could certainly provide an ODBC client within RMS and an ODBC 
>> server akin to the DECnet FAL server. Or could route DAP over IP 
>> SSL/TLS if they were inclined. (Though IP integration on OpenVMS is 
>> weak, and SSL/TLS weaker.) Or the flexibility of something like the 
>> libferris FUSE. Having an SMB client would be nice, as many sites have 
>> substantial investments in SMB servers. But I digress.
> 
> ODBC is a relational database API and pretty far from DECnet file 
> access in my opinion.


I recall similar discussions with someone of the opinion that there was 
a functional difference between NTDS† and NFS, me then and still being 
of the opinion that NTDS was a proper subset of what an NFS server can 
provide.

Here, NOSQL RMS databases can be remotely accessed by key (whether a 
"real" key or synthetic) within hypothetically-integrated ODBC support, 
the same as database records can be accessed by database index.

Apps using the RMS APIs would be oblivious of ODBC or of some SSL/TLS 
DAP connection, too.

(Not that I've expended appreciable effort remotely accessing 
individual records in a sequential file via DECnet in far too many 
years. Or much effort with DECnet, for that matter. I have used DECnet 
a few times, when I needed to remotely bounce the IP stack, and with no 
iLO access available. New app work involving DECnet FAL/DAP, not so 
much.)

I just don't see the RMS NOSQL formats as being particularly useful for 
substantive new development work, either.  Where I am using those NOSQL 
RMS file formats is largely due to gaps in feature availability within 
OpenVMS.

And as mentioned above, I wouldn't mind an SMB client for OpenVMS. A 
client for WebDAV, too.


†NTDS: Windows NT Disk Services, part of OpenVMS NT Affinity, another 
forerunner of SMB.



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