[Klug-general] Open Database Standards/Protocols

[Ian Pascoe]

Folks

Slightly OT, but hopefully someone out there can provide some pointers.

At work we're looking for a transport mechanism that will allow various
databases to communicate with one another, this is in the form of a 3 tier
aproach, over multiple systems.  At the base level we have the live
databases, these then send snapshots into a data warehouse, and on top of
this we have users and other interested parties connected.  This is great
for us as it means the users can't damage the live systems!

So far so good.  The problem that we have is that most of the top and bottom
layers are on different database platforms, Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL, MS Access
and quite a few others besides.

The headache we have at the moment is between the data warehouse and end
user systems, and instead of having to write a dedicated app to communicate
between each system we were going to look at some type of protocol /
mechanism that we could generalise out.  This is going to be a BIG task!

So, the question is, does anyone know of such a protocol that will work over
a VPN as well as a LAN / WAN / SAN setup?

Yes, I know there's XML and that's probably where we'd go from stage 1, but
the schema, oh the schema ....

Pointers welcome.

Ian