RE: ODBC traffic

<quote>Of course it's not likely that anybody uses Excel directly as a data
entry/maint tool.</quote>

I would disagree about "likely". The world has changed (and we didn't know
it...). I don't agree with the idea of data maintenance this way, but it's
here and becoming more prevalent. They do not wait for a screen to be built
or changed. I'm not working in anything close to a small shop. This is very
large corporate environment, many companies, many systems, and it is very
prevalent for major users, main apps and financials to use Excel for entry.
However, the database is heavily full of constraints, triggers, event
processing, commits and rollbacks. Unedited data does not get in.
Unauthorized users do not get access. One feature is that users doing
uploads of data are really loading "staging tables" and it is an event
process that updates the main tables.
I would say the one system where database did not keep up with the others is
Power i (mostly our fault (or really mgrs will replace software, but not
modernize existing), not IBM's fault) and we suffer for it.
I have seen this in other large corporations, especially in finance.
Jim Franz

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Charles Wilt
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 1:28 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: ODBC traffic

Of course it's not likely that anybody uses Excel directly as a data
entry/maint tool.

But reading data into Excel for analysis is quite common, particularly for
MS SQL Server users.

Disallowing ODBC connections to the IBM i would prevent that.

If you DW is on the i, it's not a moot point unless you've got object
security set up and/or exit point programs in use.

Which goes back to my initial response.

Charles

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 1:03 PM, Monnier, Gary <Gary.Monnier@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Does anyone allow Excel to be a data entry/maintenance tool for critical
tables in other databases? I suspect not, for the same reasons sites for
the IBM i.

If you are using a data warehouse the issue is a moot point since a
warehouse is, by definition, going to be read only as far as the
client-side is concerned.

Gary Monnier


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Charles Wilt
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 9:46 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: ODBC traffic

Sure that's a simple option...

Works right up till the IBM i gets replaced as being outdated for not
having the Excel integration and/or too expensive since a developer
has to be involved for everything.

Charles

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Monnier, Gary
<Gary.Monnier@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

The really simple option is to not allow ODBC/JDBC/OLEDB connections
from spreadsheets.

A user obliterating a critical table is what spawned PowerTech's
exit point technology. A user utilized Excel to upload, if memory
serves, the chart of accounts. They then eliminated everything they
didn't want, made some changes and downloaded to (at the time) the

AS/400.

You can always have the developers write a client-side extract
program that creates a spreadsheet.

Thanks,

Gary Monnier

IT Software Engineer CSM, CSPO

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