The types of information that you plan to store within a database when utilizing the Micro Focus Database File Handler (MFDBFH)
determines the types of database that you must configure.
It is possible that you would have more than one instance of these resources, and these can each be configured as separate
databases, or preferably, you can house them all in one single database. Using one single database has performance benefits;
for example, you can use the same database connection to access all resources
stored in the same database; see
Database Connections for more information.
The table below shows the types of database available, and when you are likely to use them:
- Datastore database
- A datastore database is designed to store any of the following data file types: KSDS, RRDS, ESDS, line-sequential, and fixed-
and variable-length sequential files.
- Using the
dbfhadmin -script command line utility, you can create script files to run against your database that create the new datastores. Once created,
you can upload existing files to the datastore.
Note: For all database types except Oracle, datastores can also be created implicitly if your application opens a data file specifying
a datastore that doesn't currently exist; however, it is good practice to create the required datastores explicitly beforehand,
using the script files or the
dbfhadmin -createdb command. For Oracle datastores, the underlying database for the datastore must already exist beforehand.
- Refer to the
Configuring Datastores section for details on how to place new and existing data files in a database. If your application was working correctly
with the data files before they were moved to a database, your source code will not need to be altered/recompiled to be able
to use datastore files.
- However, if your applications are transactional, an additional XA resource is required to interact with the datastore. If
you have COBOL applications that also use the same database (that contains the datastore), you'll need to configure multiple
XA resources and then ensure the correct XAR is used in the correct scenario - refer to
Working with Multiple XARs for details on how to handle such situations.