Back in July I reported that Solano - the Informix Dynamic Server feature that supports hosting a Java server from within IDS - was documented in the 10.00.xC5 Documentation notes, and made a vague commitment to come up with some example code to show how to use it.

Today I'm pleased to make good on that promise in the form of a developerWorks tutorial describing how to set up an RSS server running inside IDS: Cut out the Middle-Man: Use Informix Dynamic Server with J/Foundation to host a Java application service.

The key to understanding how to use Solano is in this sentence from around the middle of the article:

Note that it is the addition of the database name and user credentials to the standard server-side JDBC direct connection string that tells IDS this is a Solano application that can run unattended.

I'm interested to know what anyone thinks of this technology and where you see it being useful. Does this article provide an understanding of what the feature is or would you like a better explanation?

The next Solano project I'd like to try is to implement a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) server as a Solano application to enable browser-to-database public key encryption with very little configuration overhead. If other network ports into the data server and machine are disabled this could result in a highly secure database application.