Outputting Oracle to a Fax Server?

We have an Oracle 6 server on a Netware 3.11 LAN and want to allow remote Oracle clients to request formatted reports from Oracle that would be faxed to a pre-supplied fax number.

Our plan is to use a dedicated fax server (FaxWorks under OS/2) to serve this purpose along with supporting other outbound fax requests from DOS, Windows, and OS/2 clients on our LAN.

The LAN is all IPX at this point, but we are starting to implement TCP/IP for a number of reasons. We also are planning to move the Oracle server to version 7 on another platform, most likely a Unix variant. Remote clients will be a combination of dial-up and Telnet. We do not anticipate a need for them to log in to any of our Netware server in order to access the relevant Oracle applications.

I have thought of a number of Mickey Mouse ways in which to achieve fax-back of Oracle output to dial-up and Telnet clients, including running polling processes (Rexx scripts, for example) under a permanent, tightly limited login from our dial-up server (running Citrix), thus limiting the need for dial up users to write to the network, then having the dedicated fax server poll a network directory for jobs.

This sounds ugly. Anyone have any more elegant ideas? I've had some vague notions about things like APPC and using various installable file systems to let these servers communicate more directly, but would appreciate any tips from anybody who's already invented this wheel.

Jim Received on Thu Nov 11 1993 - 20:06:38 CET