Re: Oracle WebServer Opinion

> 1.) Import data from our real database (production) securely.

"Import" probably isn't the right word. OWS pretty much assumes that pages fall into two categories: static pages that sit in a directory like a normal web site, and dynamic pages generated from queries on the database. If you're going to generate pags, it's assumed that you'll do this with forms-style requests, and the URL has to have a certain format:

http://site:port/owa-bin/owa/service/procedure

Here, "service" is the name of the "listener" - you can have several, and defines which database is used, and which database id, etc. This information is stored in a file on the disk (albeit a restricted access one), so bear that in mind for security. It also supports Netscape's Secure Sockets Layer, although I haven't had experience of this, and that doesn't seem to be what you're asking for, here.

>
> 2.) generate on the fly dynamic web pages for people querying our database
> stored information (pictures and goods data).

In the above URL, "procedure" is the name of the PL/SQL procedure you want to execute. Field values from the form get passed to the formal parameters for the procedure. I haven't found a way for PL/SQL procedures to accept ISINDEX-style query strings, or addition path components after the procedure name. owa-bin/owa is the name of a CGI program that implements the PL/SQL interface. You can of course have any other CGI program, as with any other web server.

Generating pages is generally easy from within the PL/SQL, as there's a set of procedures for printing most of the HTML components, and you can print raw HTML if something isn't covered. Generally, though, things like images are assumed to be stored on the normal disk, and retrieved as normal files - not from within the database.

> 3.) The web server should run on a low cost platform that has to talk
> to out unix boxes over a firewall. (NT ? )

Pass. I've used it on a Sun SPARCStation 2 running Solaris 2.5, and which is the same machine as the Oracle database itself.

> 4.) It has to be stable (webserver 2.0 ?) and must be easy to admin, so
> that the focus is on data not down time.

Stability is a hard thing to answer. I haven't crashed my system *much*, but I have broken it a bit, and that could be due to some strange things I'm doing with Oraperl at the same time (I can't do everything I need with OWS, such as handling uploads of files). The main problem I've got is the webserver closing connections from PCs running Netscape. I don't see this on my own browser, and Oracle UK Support are supposedly looking into it...

Administration is all done with the forms, which is ok, but I find that this can be irritating if your browser doesn't scroll enormous forms too well. Apart from that, fine.

> Whats good out there ?

Oraperl. :-)

> Is Oracle a player in this arena? Or is Illustra
> /Informix better??

Pass. I know next to nothing about them.

> My experience winth ORacle Webserver under NT was no
> t fun...is 2.0 better? is 3.0 even better???

Well, 2.0.1 was certainly an improvement over 1.0.1, but I'm not aware of v.3 being out - but then again, I haven't checked lately.

steve Received on Mon Jul 01 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST