If you want to access database content from your Web application, you should define a database profile to make this connection available throughout your Web target. A database profile is a named set of parameters stored in the registry that defines a connection to a particular database.
To define a database connection profile, select the DB Profiles button from the PowerBar. Use the Database Profiles dialog box and the interface-specific Database Profile Setup dialog box to define your profile. The database profile specifies the parameters for connecting to the database, including a user ID and password, a server name, a database name, and other optional information.
For more information about defining database profiles, see Connecting to Your Database.
After you set up database access for a Web target, you can add a Web DataWindow DTC to your page or write scripts that otherwise reference a database profile. In the Properties dialog box for the Web DataWindow DTC, you select both the DataWindow object you want to use and the database connection profile used by that DataWindow.
For more information, see “Selecting a database profile”.
If you choose not to use the DTC and instead create a database connection from a script, you can add logic to the connection definition that gets executed during page processing by an application server.
For information on writing scripts to access a database, see the DataWindow Programmer’s Guide.
When you use the Web DataWindow (with or without the DTC), it is the Web DataWindow server component that interacts with the database, so you need to set up database connections on the server where the component is running.
To make sure you have the same results at design time and runtime, it is preferable to select the same database connection type in the DataWindow painter (when you create a DataWindow object) that you plan on using on the server where the DataWindow is deployed (and that you select from a database connection drop-down list if you are using the Web DataWindow DTC).
For more information on the database connectivity software available on EAServer and COM+, see Connecting to Your Database and the DataWindow Programmer’s Guide.
