Re: Resources for building database *server* interface

[erix]

It sounds interesting. However I for one would like to get some more of that context.

The only thing it reminds me of at the moment is the pulling together of several cgi frontends (=databases) to a single frontend. I've seen some examples of that. But I suppose you want something more, eh, detached?

[etcshadow]

OK... more context, then (just for fun, though... doesn't really have anything to do with the question):

We've got a system that has a large number of identically structured databases. Because they are identically structured, then you can imagine a sort of "virtual database" consisting of the sum of all the constituent databases. For example, if you had a table FOO in each of the databases like:

(
  FOOID       number,
  FOOTYPE     varchar,
  AMOUNT      number

for example. Thus, in the virtual database, there would exist a virtual table FOO like:

(
  FOOID       number,
  FOOTYPE     varchar,
  AMOUNT      number,

  DATABASEID  number

)

So, if you took a query like:

select sum(amount), footype
from foo
group by footype

and ran it against the virtual database, what would actually happen is that the query

select sum(amount), footype
from foo
group by footype

would get run in parallel through all of the identical (actual) DBs, and they would each return their result sets to the virtual DB, which would then roll up the individual result-sets into one result set. It's conceptually as though the query were executed like:

select sum(sum_amount), footype
from (
    select sum(amount) as sum_amount, footype
    from db1.foo
    group by footype
    UNION ALL
    select sum(amount) as sum_amount, footype
    from db2.foo
    group by footype
    UNION ALL
    ...
    UNION ALL
    select sum(amount) as sum_amount, footype
    from dbN.foo
    group by footype
)
group by footype

Only with the "UNION"s being executed in parallel.

To get an even better idea, there's stuff like:

select sum(amount), footype
from foo
where databaseid in (1,2,3)
group by footype

This would get pulled apart, such that the "where databaseid in (...)" was removed from the query, and was used, instead, to control the set of databases over which to run the query.

Anyway, none of that is what I want help with. It's already a done deal... I'm trying to figure out if there are any tools, etc, on how to build an ODBC server interface... I've already got the server to back it up, I just need the ability to slap an ODBC access method onto it.