[jboss-as7-dev] (JDBC) Driver Registry

[Peter Larsen]

On 05/09/2011 05:35 AM, Heiko Braun wrote:
>
> Following up with some of the discussion we'd been having in the past few weeks,
> I would like to call for comments on the idea of a central, domain level driver registry
> that can be used to query specific deployments like JDBC drivers.

What I am missing is a registry/wizard help in JBDS to setup data 
sources easily. Something where I can quickly create a data source, and 
test it, from within JBDS, but where I can also bring up the wizard and 
add more advanced options.

> Creating datasource configuration is currently way to complex for the average user.
> Once you've deployed the JDBC driver you need provide the correct driver name, driver class and version
> besides the regular data source attributes. Since we are lacking a way to query for installed JDBC drivers
> this currently means providing the required attributes as string values.
Currently we have partly a wizard driven method of doing this for 
Hibernate but it somehow doesn't relate to the persistence.xml which 
SEAM works on. I also find that I usually work from the usual 5-10 
different data sources over multiple projects. Creating a repository or 
registry where I can define my data-sources _once_ and simply pull them 
in to my current project would be helpful.  Maybe somekind of 
"data-sources.xml" can be used to store the registry, imported and 
exported to/from workspaces would allow the developer to quickly get 
common configurations going for a new workspace/project.

There's another advantage - if a password changes to a data-source, just 
changing the registry should be enough to change all deployed versions 
of that data-source.


> A more simple and less error prone approach would be to provide a selection of drivers to chose from.
> But this would require something like a domain level driver registry.
That's already in JBDS? It's a bit buggy since it cannot locate the 
driver JAR files correctly but it's there. It would be nice if selecting 
a database type would automatically install/implement the correct driver.

> The same mechanism might be used to query available resource adapters or other specific deployment types
> that are typically referenced by applications.
I think that is a dangerous path. I may have 3-4 database drivers 
globally in /lib or similar resources that I may not use for project A 
but I need for Project B. Besides, the driver alone does not give me 
instance name, host name, user name, password to just mention a few of 
the required parameters.

> Any reasons why this cannot be done?
> Any objections why it shouldn't be?
> Other ideas how this situation can be improved?
A central repository for pre-configured data-sources that includes not 
only the driver, but url, username, password and hopefully room for some 
of the advanced parameters too would be helpful.  Doing it outside JBDS 
makes little sense to me. And there needs to be a "reconcile" option so 
changes done to the registry can be adopted to the project/application.


-- 
Regards,
   Peter Larsen
   Solutions Architect
   JBoss by Red Hat

   Email: plarsen at redhat.com
   Phone: 540 738 0733

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