ODBC connection to QIP database (Sybase)

[ParkIsland]

We're using QIP6.1 and have almost thousand networks for about 20 sites in QIP. After couple years and no clean-up, a lot of DNS records are inactive; adminstrators shut down servers but didn't delete the records, and some workstations are assigned static ip. It's possible to export each network's DNS/host records (after ping and got the status, reachable or unreachable). However, it's not practical for a big site.
I was told to have ODBC connection to QIP databse (Sybase) and access the required info. For example, the host class (workstation, server, router or...), network status and whether configured in DNS(In DNS; reachable or unreachable), object description and ...

Does anyone have experience using ODBC connection to QIP Sybase? Or have any suggestion for me. QIP installed in Solaris platform.

Thanks in advance.

 

[red3kgto]

Hi, I'm not exactly sure why you need an ODBC connection or what you are going to do with the data once you have got it. If you want to have a clear out, have you tried using QIP's built-in reclaim feature yet?

In QIP 6.1 you can configure it to ping subnets multiple times and it will store the results in the database, so you can now see when was the last time an IP address was reachable. i.e. ping at 10am and 3pm for 30 days, and delete everything that doesn't respond within that time frame.

Cheers,

Paul

 

[ParkIsland]

Thanks Paul. Reclaim can't check all records, for instance, M-DHCP.
We have a central QIP server and allow 15 branches IT to create/update/delete their own DNS records. But, some never update their records. For example, they didn't delete static record after server retired.
I need to review their DNS records (all classes except D-DHCP) in totally over 300 networks. I ping all hosts in a network properties. Then, export to a CSV and filter unwanted records in Excel. It takes so long to export records network by network manually. Directly connect to database,if possible, is the more efficient way to handle a number of networks.

Do you have any more advice?
Thanks.

 

[red3kgto]

Ah, okay I see where you're coming from now. Later versions of Sybase actually come with a an ODBC driver, I know Sybase 12.5 installs one so you may find you have one already. Have you checked your ODBC drivers yet in control panel? You may have to do a custom install of Sybase to load it on.

This still won't help you automate things though unless you want to start doing VBA scripts in Excel.

I think personally what I would do is use Perl. The exportsimpleobj CLI will get a list of everything, so you could open the export file in Perl and start pinging each IP address. You could even use a QIP user defined field to store the ping result (e.g. how many ping attempts, how many times reachable, when was it last reachable etc.).

Or you could use the Perl DBI interface to get at the data directly if you wanted to bypass the CLI's.

Paul