Sybase Central from Sybase – accessing the world of Veritas DB

Last week, I stumbled upon creating custom report with VBR on one of my customer. I explored inside VBR for custom report wizard, but that does not help me much. The said “custom report wizard” is not so custom, only up to certain parameters where you can create, but not up to your satisfaction level. One downside detected, ok lets move to the next big thing.

One more option available is to insert your own SQL query via the web, but without knowing what parameters that you want to key in, heh. Why? Because not stated inside any Symantec documentation about what parameters to use to create custom report via SQL query. Ironic. You will have to find it yourself, one way to view the parameters generated from VBR inside the web log, but that is so unprofessional to me, Symantec should have come with a tool or documents that describe on how to create custom report for it’s software.

Inside installation guide only stated a guest access to access the database, which will give you limited access to the database, view access only. So I logged a call to Symantec, and guess what, the first response that I got when I asked for DBA user password is, they only have guest password, that’s all. How on earth will you able to create your own database if you only have guest password?

I asked again and again, and then only the senior support gave me the DBA access, so in case you need to create custom SQL query with your VBR and dont want to go through hassle like I did, here’s the details;

Login : DBA

Password : Omnipotent1 ( mind the uppercase, it’s case sensitive )

And at the same time, I also asked, since this will requires more than beginner level programming, is there any tools for us to generate the SQL based on your parameters? The answer is NO, oh my..

To access the database is one thing, you will have to find the right tool for the job. I Googled, so far third party tools that I found on the web did not fulfill the criteria. Thinking that the database is based on Sybase ASA, I headed my way to Sybase page, and wallah, found Sybase Central, not ever using this tool before so I gave it a shot. To get it, registration is required in order for Sybase to send you the key, yes, license key needed, but dont have to buy, it’s free. Once downloaded, install it and you are free to go. It comes with 4 major components;

SQL Anywhere 11

MobiLink 11

QAnywhere 11

UltraLite 11

One that I’m using now is SQL Anywhere 11, it does a great job for me. Others still not yet explored, but will do one day. The GUI for SQL Anywhere 11 is pretty simple, as long as you know what database is all about, then you will have no problem with it. You will be present with Connect Assistant where you will get a wizard on set of information that you need to enter in oder to access your database. So far for now, Veritas Netbackup and VBR is using the same database platform, Sybase ASA. For Veritas Netbackup, here is the access details;

Login : dba

Password : nbusql

Once you get to access the database, you will be able to see tables, indexes, dbspaces and etc, all is there for you to get your job done in custom programming. I do really think that Symantec should have come with a tools to create this custom scripting, dont you?

Regards,

Rewlie