Configuring a Database Connection

Before you can sign-on to a database, you must configure an ODBC Datasource for that database.

The way you configure an ODBC Datasource is different for each type of database. In the following sections I describe how this is done for each database type. This section gives general comments about how this is done.

As a general rule, the following steps need to be done in order to access a database:

Install Database Client Software and/or ODBC Driver.

In most cases, before you can connect to your database you will need both:

• a Client for your database. The client manages the communication between your PC and the Database server.
• an ODBC Driver for your database. This provides the translation between the ODBC calls used by AQT and the native interface to your database.

In many cases, the client and ODBC Driver are packaged together (eg. when you install the client, you will also get the ODBC driver).

Client software is not required for MS Access, MS SQL Server, text, Excel and dBase databases, as drivers for these come as a part of the standard Windows install.

Configure the Client

You will need to configure the database client in order for it to connect to your database. For some databases, configuring the database client is done as part of the ODBC Datasource Setup, for other databases this is a separate step.

• for Oracle, see Installing and Configuring the Oracle Instant Client
• for DB2, see Configuring the DB2 Client

In order for your client to be able to connect with the server, it will need to know the following information:

• the hostname (or IP address) of the machine where the database resides. If the database resides on your own machine, specify localhost
• the port your database server is "listening" on. In general you should accept the default given by the configuration dialog.
• you may also be required to specify miscellaneous other parameters relating to the way the ODBC driver interacts with the database.

We cannot help you with this information - you will need to see your DBA for this information.

Setting up a new Datasource

This can be done in two ways:

• from the AQT Signon window, click on Add new Datasource
• using the ODBC Data Source Administrator