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| Host database connections for IIS |
| Web development tools such as Macromedia's UltraDev and Microsoft's FrontPage make it |
| relatively easy to create dynamic pages that display information from a live database in a Web page. |
| FrontPage, for example, provides a wizard that walks you through the process, making it easy even |
| for first-timers to add database integration. Although UltraDev doesn't provide a wizard, it does |
| include several live objects you can insert in a page to quickly integrate a database. |
| But if you're running IIS on a Windows 2000 Professional computer, where are you going to host |
| the database? Do you need a SQL server or other high-end database server? No. You can use the |
| same Windows 2000 Professional computer to host the Web site as well as the database. The |
| solution is to set up an ODBC connection for the database on the computer. |
| Look in the Control Panel for the Data Sources (ODBC) applet. You can create and manage three |
| types of Data Source Names (DSNs) through the applet: user, system, and file. In almost all cases, |
| you'll create a system DSN for connection by users through IIS. To create a DSN, follow these |
| Click the System DSN tab and click Add. |
| Select the type of database being used for the connection, such as Microsoft Access, and click |
| Windows 2000 will display a dialog box in which you specify a name for the data source, a |
| description, and the database itself. (Don't include spaces in the data source name, as many Web |
| integration tools have trouble handling data source names with spaces.) |
| You can also specify a username and password for a data connection. Some development tools |
| require that you use a user name and password. It's a good practice to use one, because it ensures |
| an additional level of security for the connection. |
| One final tip: You don't need to have any database application installed on the server to host a |
| database connection. For example, you can use a Microsoft Access database without having Access |
| installed on the computer. The ODBC driver takes care of interacting with the database file. |
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