Changes to the Version 4.0 tools for configuring data sources

Version 4.0.2 changes some of the Advanced Edition Version 4.0 tools that you use to configure data sources.

Changes to the administrative console or to dialogs accessed from the console include--

• The administrative console lists all possible configuration properties for the data source you are creating or modifying. The JDBCDriver customizes this list.

  A red asterisk is shown beside all required properties. Unless you supply values for all required properties, you cannot create a DataSource object.

  The DataSource creation wizard displays required properties only.

• The DataSource attributes Database name, User ID, and Password are no longer shown as separate files in the administrative console. They are now included as configuration properties if they are required.
• You must install a JDBCDriver on at least one node before you can create DataSources on that driver. This means that the console will not allow you to create a DataSource on a JDBCDriver that has not been installed. It also means that the DataSource creation wizard no longer supports an option to create a new JDBCDriver as a side-effect of creating a DataSource; the JDBCDriver must exist and be installed prior to creating any DataSource.
• A new "test" function helps you determine whether the properties you supply allow access to the database. You can use this function to test an existing data source or a data source that you are creating.

Changes to the wscp command-line interface include--

• The DataSource object has a new testConnection action that tests to see if you can use the DataSource to access the underlying database.
• The JDBCDriver object has two new actions:

  testConnection

  An action that is similar to the action for DataSource, except that you must supply a list of properties to be used in testing.

  listProperties

  An action that allows you to list all supported configuration properties for a driver, or just the required or optional ones. You can use listProperties on your JDBCDriver before trying to create a DataSource so you know what properties should be supplied in the ConfigProperties attribute.

• Three attributes on the DataSource object are no longer visible from wscp: DatabaseName, DefaultUser, and DefaultPassword. The attributes are now part of the ConfigProperties attribute, in case you need them for the JDBC Provider in use.

  So you do not break existing wscp scripts, you can continue to supply these attributes on DataSource create or DataSource modify commands. If you do, wscp converts them to the databaseName, user, and password properties in the ConfigProperties attribute.

• As with the administrative console, in wscp you must install the JDBCDriver corresponding to a DataSource before creating the DataSource. This change might break existing scripts that create DataSources on JDBCDrivers that have not been installed. Such scripts will receive a message with a JDBCDriverNotInstalledException:

  /JDBCDriver:j2/DataSource:ds1/ cannot be used because /JDBCDriver:j2/ has not been installed on any node; 
      exception information was com.ibm.ejs.sm.exception.JDBCDriverNotInstalledException

• You cannot uninstall JDBCDrivers that have existing DataSources.