With the Wonderware product InSQL, MS SQL Server is bundled with it. One installation I am involved with is used to capture machine data, we will have Intouch nodes at a multiple machines which provide data for InSql. We are now trying to
implement a link to the MIS Sql Server which is MS SQL 6.5 to gather product data relevant to
the reporting.
Another site uses the SQL tools within Intouch to provide this data to MS Sql 6.5 with out
InSql. By using Ms Sql products it seems as open as most other open type products with their non open quirks but so far we have had no brick walls.
We have also implemented RSSql within this system, to allow buffering of data between the main Sql database and the machine node, and to guarantee the data is accurately placed into the
database.
With RSView, I believe the Watcom database is tagname definitions,etc and is not for an
information database. (I could be wrong?)
I feel that Sql maybe more flexible and easier to to manage a reasonable size database than one which is in a Scada package. But it would depend on what you want with out, ie multiple users and data providers, data for different software.

Regards,
Trevor Ousey

 

I am not familiar with MS SQL Server, but to see how close MS's SQL in Access is to "standard" SQL one should try to run some of the examples
queries in the Help files or compare some running ones (in SQL view) to a text on "standard" SQL. Just a hint; there are some differences that can really burn you until you discover what they are.

 

I am of the opinion that what Microsoft calls SQL in Access is very misleading ... while it is structured, and is a query language, it isn't SQL. The Access version of SQL really just gives the ability to have text based representation of what can be done using the GUI queries which are needed to compete with Paradox and other proprietary databases.

I also know that Microsoft extended the MS-SQL language. I haven't done an exhaustive comparison with its feature set against the standard, but I assume that the standard command forms should work.

 

The major differences between Microsoft Access SQL and ANSI SQL-92 are listed in a table on page 190 of "Access Developer's Handbook" by Litwin,
Getz & Gilbert from Sybex.

Here's a quote from the above book, "Access SQL is a hybrid SQL. It differs considerably from each of the SQL standards and doesn't completely support any of the ANSI SQL standards. It lacks large chunks of the standards, particularly in the areas of security and cursors. Sometimes it supports the same functionality found in one of the standards, but with a different syntax... In other cases, similiar functionality is provided elsewhere in Access... Finally, Access SQL has some useful extensions that are not present in any of the standards..."

All in all, it sounds to me like Microsoft has taken the attitude with Access SQL that they take on everything else--they program what they want
and the standards be damned.

 

The big problem I had was not that MS didn't follow standards, but that the examples in their own help files wouldn't work as typed there.

 

My understanding is that MS Access is going away and it will be replaced by MS SQL server. I believe that the SQL used by MS SQL server is a better representation of the standard.

I don't know about Oracle, but I do work a good deal with Sybase. Sybase has extensions to the SQL standard. If you use those extensions then you will make your code nonportable.

 

Just to clarify your statement. Microsoft Access, the program, is not going away. What is heading toward obsolescence is the Microsoft JET Engine which is the thing that writes the MDB files. Instead Micrososft will be pushing the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) - which is the SQL Server backend minus the management tools and with limitations on Database Size and number of connections.

MSDE is on the Office 2000 Developers Edition CD.

 

With regard to the original question.
RS SQL is a tool to develop a MS SQL database and populate it with real time information that can be queried by a variety of clients if they know the database structure.
InSql from Wonderware is an out of the box premade MSSQL database with time domain extensions that allows non IT/database specialists to capture real time data that can be queried from a variety of off the shelf clients.

Cheers

Roy Smith