RE: Modernization and multi-member files

Dave wrote:

<Snip>
(That's the part that is the security concern -- if you could directly
access those FLAT
FILES, you would be bypassing all of the built-in security and integrity
etc. of the database. But that's NOTHING LIKE how DB2/400 works -- at all.)
Oh??? Seems to me, in the i,if you have security access to the file you can
get in and look at the data from all kinds of back doors; some without SQL.
Whereas, certainly on the mainframe, IF you have security access to the base
file at all, go ahead and look at the file; it looks like junk. You can't
read it, not EVEN WITH AN ISAM UTILITY. Why? Because your not going
through the engine and using SQL. Not so on the i.
</snip>

Hi Dave,

I think this is where you go seriously off the rails. Compared to other
systems, the access methods you are talking about are still WITHIN the
database "shell", and all integrity rules still apply - security and
relational - so long as they are defined and implemented; you simply can't
bypass the rules as you are ALWAYS "going through the engine".

Surely this is a superior thing ?

On your other real-world DBMS's I can meddle with the files in the file
system and my database is toast. I don't need to be enrolled in the
database, I just need the appropriate file system permissions to the files
in question. The iSeries simply doesn't have a concept of the database as an
application running on a server - it IS a database, ALL of it (OK that's not
strictly true but for the purposes of this discussion it is true enough).

You still haven't come up with a single concrete example of why record level
hurts the database and don't actually appear to understand how it works. I'd
suggest your understanding of the system i security model and database is
what is at fault, not the database implementation.

Regards
Evan Harris