OEM authentication is explained in the SQL Anywhere Help, but that explanation can only be understood by someone who already understands OEM authentication.
John Yossarian's Explanation
This blog post came in the form of an email from a client who offered to help me set Foxhound up to work for clients who use the OEM Edition of SQL Anywhere.
This explanation from John Yossarian (not his real name) was so clear, concise and helpful that I asked for (and received) permission to publish it here.
Breck
from: John Yossarian <jy@stark.co.uk>
to: Breck Carter <breck.carter@gmail.com>
date: Jun 12, 2021, 4:28 PM
subject: Authenticated OEM SQL Anywhere Connections
The three parts of the authentication business are
a) licencing the server engine
b) authenticating the database and
c) authenticating the connection.
When you go into the authentication business SAP give you three keys - the keys are all different but match
each other and the publishing company & application names (ie they won't work with other keys):
- an install key: you use this with dblic.exe -k to create OEM lic files (just like a normal install key) - but
we can then redistribute those engines. (this bit isn't your problem of course)
- a database key: this is used once on a database to make it an Authenticated database which will work on
the server created with the install key - the setting is persistent. This is done with a SET OPTION command; e.g.
SET OPTION PUBLIC.DATABASE_AUTHENTICATION='Company=Stark;Application=Winterfell;Signature=XXXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXX';
This step needs SET ANY SECURITY OPTION rights.
- a connection key: This is used by connections to the database. Each connection has a 30 second (or so) grace
period to set a temporary Connection_authentication option; e.g.
SET TEMPORARY OPTION CONNECTION_AUTHENTICATION='Company=Stark;Application=Winterfell;Signature=YYYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYYYYY'
- a non-authenticated connection to an authenticated database running on an OEM engine is allowed to connect
but after thirty seconds is strictly read-only.
So, if you wanted to support authenticated servers fully, you would need users to supply both the database key
and the connection key, in the set-up process & then use them as above.
Highcharts is a bare-metal browser-based JavaScript API for adding interactive charts to HTML pages.
Highcharts is powerful, well documented and (relatively) easy to use, plus it's been around a long time (2009), it's popular and it's commercially successful.
Here's the Highcharts version of Hello, World!:
Demo, Chart!
[ Click the buttons to see data, then move the mouse to see tooltips ]
There are advantages to storing code together with the data in a relational database. For example, application deployment, backup, recovery, portability, security all involve a single *.db file, and the Rules For Relational Databases guarantee consistency among various components.
If you have SQL Anywhere 17 installed, embedding Hello, Chart! is a two-step "Download And Go" process:
Here's how the code works, starting at the point the web browser launches http://localhost:54321/hello.html.
Step 1:
The browser passes the request for "hello.html" to the HTTP server embedded inside the SQL Anywhere 17 process dbsrv17.exe, which is listening for HTTP traffic on port 54321 because of the option -xs http(port=54321).
It could use port 80, but this is a demo, and demos are supposed to work, not generate conflicts with existing software :)
Step 2:
SQL Anywhere passes the request to the web service named "hello.html" that is defined in this snippet.
CREATE SERVICE "hello.html" TYPE 'RAW' AUTHORIZATION OFF USER DBA
AS CALL get_static_text_file ( 'hello.html' );
Step 3:
The web service passes the request on to the procedure shown in this snippet.
The RESULT clause on line 61 specifies that the procedure will return a result set to the caller (the browser) consisting of a single LONG VARCHAR column.
The CALL on line 75 sets the HTTP Content-Type header to 'text/html' because the input file extension is 'html'.
The SELECT on line 91 gets the text file data from a table rather than an actual file; this is the SELECT that defines the RESULT set returned by this procedure.
CREATE PROCEDURE get_static_text_file ( IN @file_name VARCHAR ( 255 ) )
RESULT ( text_string LONG VARCHAR )
BEGIN
DECLARE @extension_pos INTEGER;
DECLARE @extension VARCHAR ( 100 );
SET @extension_pos = LOCATE ( @file_name, '.', -1 );
SET @extension
= IF @extension_pos = 0
THEN ''
ELSE SUBSTR ( @file_name, @extension_pos + 1 )
ENDIF;
CALL dbo.sa_set_http_header (
'Content-Type',
CASE @extension
WHEN 'css' THEN 'text/css'
WHEN 'csv' THEN 'text/csv'
WHEN 'htm' THEN 'text/html'
WHEN 'html' THEN 'text/html'
WHEN 'js' THEN 'application/javascript'
WHEN 'json' THEN 'application/json'
WHEN 'xml' THEN 'application/xml'
ELSE 'text/plain'
END CASE );
IF EXISTS ( SELECT *
FROM static_text_file
WHERE static_text_file.file_name = @file_name ) THEN
SELECT static_text_file.file_text
FROM static_text_file
WHERE static_text_file.file_name = @file_name;
ELSE
SELECT STRING ( '[', @file_name, ' not found]' );
END IF;
END;
Step 4:
At this point in "how the code works", the browser receives the text for hello.html and starts processing by loading two Highcharts Javascript text files from SQL Anywhere...
Step 5:
When the browser has finished loading hello.html, it displays this...
...by executing this snippet of HTML:
<b>Hello, Chart!</b>
<p>
<button onClick="showDataSet ( 1 );">Show Data Set 1</button>
<button onClick="showDataSet ( 2 );">Show Data Set 2</button>
<div id="chartDiv" style="margin-top: 0.5em; padding: 0.5em; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px;">
[ <b>Click the buttons</b> to see data, then <b>move the mouse</b> to see tooltips ]
<p style="padding-left: 2em;">
<i>( this is the SQL Anywhere database version of
<a href="http://sqlanywhere.blogspot.com/2021/02/embedding-highcharts-in-sql-anywhere.html"
target="_blank"><b><u>the code in this blog post</u></b></a> )</i>
</div>
Step 6:
When one of the Show Data Set buttons is pressed, the browser executes the following function where
the requestUrl string points to a SQL Anywhere web service,
the chartXHR.open() sets up a XMLHttpRequest object to perform an asynchronous GET request for the web service and
the chartXHR.send() sends the request.
function showDataSet ( dataSet ) {
const requestUrl
= "get_csv_chart_data?data_set=" + dataSet; // SQL Anywhere service
chartXHR.open ( "GET", requestUrl, true );
chartXHR.send(); // this will eventually trigger chartXHR.onload
};
Step 7:
The web service get_csv_chart_data builds a CSV result set...
CREATE SERVICE get_csv_chart_data TYPE 'RAW' AUTHORIZATION OFF USER DBA
AS CALL get_csv_chart_data ( :data_set );
CREATE PROCEDURE get_csv_chart_data ( IN @data_set INTEGER )
RESULT ( csv_string LONG VARCHAR )
BEGIN
CALL dbo.sa_set_http_header ( 'Content-Type', 'text/csv' );
SELECT STRING ( -- convert rows for one data set into CSV data
'Chart Timestamp,Chart Percent',
'\x0d\x0a',
LIST (
STRING ( DATEFORMAT ( chart_data.chart_timestamp, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' ),
',',
chart_data.chart_percent ),
'\x0d\x0a'
ORDER BY chart_data.chart_timestamp ) )
FROM chart_data
WHERE chart_data.data_set = COALESCE ( @data_set, 1 );
END;
Here's where the CSV data originally came from; it was pre-loaded into SQL Anywhere using this snippet.
Q: Why is my SELECT sometimes slow and the rest of the time it's fast?
Answer: Compare Plans!
The new Compare Plans tool in SQL Anywhere 17 lets you compare two graphical plans to see all the differences side-by-side... not just structural differences between diagrams, but individual differences between performance statistics like the number of disk reads for a single table.
Tip: You don't have to understand every detail of the graphical plans if you can find inspiration in the differences.
Tip: You can compare SQL Anywhere 16 plans but you have to launch the Compare Plans tool via ISQL 17.
2. Flush the cache in ISQL.
CALL sa_flush_cache();
3. Copy and paste this SELECT into ISQL but do not execute it (so the cache will still be empty when the next step captures the plan).
SELECT DISTINCT EmployeeID, GivenName, Surname
FROM GROUPO.SalesOrders WITH (INDEX (SalesOrdersKey)), GROUPO.Employees, GROUPO.SalesOrderItems
WHERE SalesRepresentative = EmployeeID and
SalesOrders.ID = SalesOrderItems.ID and
SalesOrderItems.ProductID = (SELECT ProductID
FROM GROUPO.Products, GROUPO.MarketingInformation
WHERE Name = 'Tee Shirt' AND
Color = 'White' AND
Size = 'Small' AND
MarketingInformation.Description LIKE '%made of recycled water bottles%');
4. Open the Tools - Plan Viewer and capture the plan as FirstPlan17.saplan.
ISQL - Tools - Plan Viewer
Pick Statistics level: Detailed and node statistics
Cursor type: Asensitive
Update status: Read-only
Click on Get Plan
Wait for the plan to appear
Click Save As...
Specify FirstPlan17.saplan
Click Save
5. Switch back to ISQL, then repeat Step 4 to save SecondPlan17.saplan.
6. Switch back to ISQL and open Tools - Compare Plans.
ISQL - Tools - Compare Plans
Click on Plan 1: - Browse...
Pick FirstPlan17.saplan
Click Open
Click on Plan 2: - Browse...
Pick SecondPlan17.saplan
Click Open
Click Compare Plans
Here are the side-by-side plans; the diagrams look the same but the statistics are different:
the red numbers show zero disk reads for the second execution because all the rows were in the cache, and
the yellow numbers are disk statistics that were only measured for the first plan:
Tip: You can compare plans for two different SELECT statements, but make sure you're not doing that by accident. The tool doesn't show differences between SELECT statements, just the resulting plans.
Here's a map for describing the Compare Plans display:
Plan 1: [filespec1] is for picking the plan to show on the left side, Plan 2: [filespec2] is for the right-hand plan, and [Compare Plans] does the work.
Tip: When you restart the Compare Plans tool after using it before, [filespec1] and [filespec2] will be the same. Be careful what you pick, the tool doesn't care if you compare the same plan with itself.
Tip: When you change [filespec1] or [filespec2], even if you do it via the [Browse...] buttons, don't forget to click [Compare Plans] again.
In other words, don't rely on [filespec1] and [filespec2] for confirmation of exactly what you are looking at. If you forgot to click [Compare Plans], those aren't the plans being displayed.
The [<-] and [->] buttons scroll up and down through Comparison Overview section, highlighting different Name rows and corresponding boxes in the Diagram sections.
Each Name in the Comparison Overview section consists of a generated identifier 1, 2, 3 and a non-unique node title (SELECT, Work, DistH, etc.).
Tip: The Comparison Overview doesn't show the whole query, just the part you selected in the Subquery: [dropdown].
Big complicated SELECT statements can have many entries in the Subquery list. Some of those subqueries can be far more expensive than others, and they can be way down deep in the list.
The two Subquery: [dropdown] lists are synchronized; change one and the other changes, and so do both the Diagram sections.
Each box in the Diagram sections shows one table or other component in the SQL Anywhere query execution plan; for the full list see Execution Plan Components.
Tip: Table names inside rectangles mean table scans, trapezoids mean index scans. Table scans aren't always bad; if SQL Anywhere picks a table scan when an index exists, it's usually because the table scan is faster.
Tip: If a Diagram section shows up empty, click on the second node and then back on the top node.
The Statistics sections, with their Details and Advanced Details tabs, are where all the interesting comparisons are found.
Here's how to find them:
Step through all the diagrams in the Subquery: [dropdown] list.
Concentrate on the Actual numbers, not the Estimates.
Concentrate on the Subtree Statistics sections, not the Node Statistics.
Start by looking for large RunTime numbers, not PecentTotalCost.
One Last Thing...
If you don't like surprises, don't click on the [Match] and [Unmatch] buttons at the bottom of the screen.
