SAP SQL Anywhere

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This is a cross-post from Stack Overflow, and someone there clued me in to your beta, so I figured I'd ask the experts. Thanks for your help.

I have a Sybase ASE server that I'm able to connect to with ASE iSql totally fine. The database definition in my sql.ini file looks like:

[<NAME>]
master=TCP,<servername>,<port>

to connect with iSql, I can make the following command-line call and it works:

isql -U <username> -P <password> -S <NAME>

My ultimate goal is to use SQL Anywhere's ADO.Net Entity Framework connectivity for a RIA service I'm writing. I'm trying to connect now using SQL Anywhere through Sybase Central (rather than through Visual Studio), and can't get it to work. Under the Identification tab, I use and for my credentials and leave the bottom half as "None", under the Database tab, I specify for the Server name, and under Network I check "TCP/IP", and specify as the Host, and as the Port. I get the following error:

Fri Nov 20 2009 13:10:10
13:10:10 Attempting to connect using:
UID=sa;ENG=<servername>;CON=SQL_DBC_15c95350;LOG=<log>;LINKS='TCPIP(IP=<servername>;PORT=<port>)'
13:10:10 Attempting to connect to a running server...
13:10:10 Trying to start TCPIP link ...
13:10:10 TCP using Winsock version 2.2
13:10:10 My IP address is 28.230.56.158
13:10:10 My IP address is 127.0.0.1
13:10:10     TCPIP link started successfully
13:10:10 Attempting TCPIP connection (no sasrv.ini cached address)
13:10:10 Looking for server with name <servername>
13:10:10 Trying to find server at address <servername>
13:10:10 Found server, verifying server name
13:10:10 TCP/IP link, function recv(), error code 0
13:10:10 Sending broadcast to find server
13:10:10 Using broadcast address of: 28.230.56.255:<port>
13:10:10 Using broadcast address of: 28.230.56.255:2638
13:10:10 Sending broadcast to find server
13:10:10 Using broadcast address of: 127.255.255.255:<port>
13:10:10 Using broadcast address of: 127.255.255.255:2638
13:10:11 Resending
13:10:12 Resending
13:10:13 Resending
13:10:14 Resending
13:10:15 Resending
13:10:16     Server not found (no reply received)
13:10:16 Failed to connect over TCPIP
13:10:16 Not attempting to autostart server
13:10:16 Cannot connect to server

I'm sorry in advance if I left out significant details. I'm new to Sybase, having a strictly Oracle background. If I left out anything you need to know, please post a comment and I'll update the question. Thanks for helping a Sybase newb.

Accepted Answer

Let's start with a couple questions:

Which version of SQL Anywhere do you have?
The error message in your question indicates "Server not found". Have you started a SQL Anywhere server?

The SQL Anywhere ADO.Net driver can be used to connect to a SQL Anywhere Server, and not to ASE.

A possible architecture to ultimately retrieve data from ASE would be to use SQL Anywhere's Remote Data feature. (http://dcx.sybase.com/index.html#1101en/dbusage_en11/ug-accessrd.html)

Using this approach, your RIA application would use SQL Anywhere's ADO.NET interface to connect to a SQL Anywhere server. Inside the SQL Anywhere database, you have defined proxy tables to read data from your ASE server.

There are obvious trade offs with this approach, such as performance. You would also have to ensure that any data updates you want to enable work as expected.

Some might wonder why you are using the ASE. Depending on your exact circumstances, a SQL Anywhere Server might satisfy all your requirements.

SAP SQL Anywhere

Configuring SQL Anywhere to read from an ASE server

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