I had a visit today from a friend who works for a huge electric power utility here in Ontario. He had three questions about Sybase.
Can Sybase Central be used to build and test SQL queries? We couldn’t find the area but he suspected if Sybase Central isn’t it there surely must be such a tool available.
My friend expressed surprise at no indexing functions in Servoy. I explained a calculation can be indexed by creating an identically named column. He suggested there should be much more functionality for indexing than just that.
He was concerned the databases have a “DBA” default, the all-powerful level where real damage can be done if deployed that way. He urges a lesser level which denies authority to delete tables and much more secure passwords.
Can Sybase Central be used to build and test SQL queries? We couldn’t find the area but he suspected if Sybase Central isn’t it there surely must be such a tool available.
Sybase Central has InteractiveSQL which is a query tool.
Morley:
2. My friend expressed surprise at no indexing functions in Servoy. I explained a calculation can be indexed by creating an identically named column. He suggested there should be much more functionality for indexing than just that.
Servoy is not a database engine. Indexing is not done by Servoy. All indexing is defined and done in the database backend, in this case Sybase.
Morley:
3. He was concerned the databases have a “DBA” default, the all-powerful level where real damage can be done if deployed that way. He urges a lesser level which denies authority to delete tables and much more secure passwords.
When you create your database, it’s up to you decide which privileges assign to the user(s) you put in it.
Morley:
2. My friend expressed surprise at no indexing functions in Servoy. I explained a calculation can be indexed by creating an identically named column. He suggested there should be much more functionality for indexing than just that.
He was concerned the databases have a “DBA” default, the all-powerful level where real damage can be done if deployed that way. He urges a lesser level which denies authority to delete tables and much more secure passwords.
How should I respond on these issues?
I already see some excellent comments in earlier replies, here are some additional comments:
Servoy does not create indexes on purpose. Indexes can improve performance but also decrease it. Index requirements depend highly on your application and backend database used. If you use Sybase ASA as your default engine then you will find more than excellent tuning tools in Sybase Central (index assistant) that will help you build the right indexes for your application even customized to the end users specific situation. Come to Servoy World for a session on this topic.
At development time the developer is in charge with which user he connects to ASA and at deployment time the deployment manager decides which user connects to ASA. As Servoy is a three tier application and end-users do not have access to the SQL layer by default this normally doesn’t cause any security risks. Nevertheless it is always a good idea to deploy using usernames/passwords with just the rights they need and nothing more.