By David Gewirtz
If you're running a relatively complex Web site, at some point you're going to need to perform remote queries of databases running on remote machines. Over the past few weeks, we've gotten a number of requests about accessing AS/400-hosted databases from a WebSphere machine, remotely.
Although it's always nice to have WebSphere loaded on the remote machine, it's not necessary. Rather, most standard AS/400 configurations (and yes, there are still loads of people using these systems) run with DB2.
You can connected to the AS/400's DB2 environment with drivers found in the JTOpen, the Open Source version of the IBM Toolbox for Java, located at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/jt400/. You'll want to look for the drivers found in jt400.jar.
Don't forget you may have to open a hole in your firewall if you're doing a remote (outside the LAN) query, or use a VPN to punch your way through.
