Chapter 5: Setting Up Communications Across the Network

Adaptive Server can communicate with other Adaptive Servers, Open Server applications, and client software across a network. Clients can communicate with one or more servers, and servers can communicate with other servers via remote procedure calls.

Directory services contains information about the network locations of servers. Directory services contain entries for all Adaptive Servers, Backup Servers, and other server products on the network.

In the Sybase client/server environment, a client can connect with Adaptive Server if it knows where the server resides on the network and if the server supports the client’s language or character set. When a client initiates a connection, it looks in its directory services for the network location of the target server.

Directory services list the name and address of every server, including Backup Server, Monitor Server, and XP Server. When you are using a client program, and you want to connect with a particular server, the client program looks up the server name in the directory services and connects to that server.

Servers also need network information. When a server starts up, it looks in its interfaces file to determine where to listen for client connection requests. In addition, Adaptive Server can take on a client role when it makes remote procedure calls to other Adaptive Servers.

Table 5-1 shows where to find more information on server and client interfaces file tasks and topics.

**Table 5-1: Where to find interfaces file tasks and topics**
Type of interfaces file	Task or topic	See
UNIX server or client	Adding entries for multiple Adaptive Server installations	Chapter 7, “Customizing Localization for Adaptive Server”
	Creating a master interfaces file for multiple installations	“Creating a master interfaces file”
	Configuring for multiple networks	“Configuring interfaces files for multiple networks”.
	Reference information	“Understanding the format of the interfaces file”.
PC-client	Configuring a client	Installation Guide for your platform
	Reference information and instructions for advanced tasks	Open Client and Open Server Programmer’s Supplement for your PC-client platform, or the appropriate Open Client documentation
Client platforms not listed	Configuring, reference information, and instructions for advanced tasks	Open Client and Open Server Programmer’s Supplement for your PC-client platform, or the appropriate Open Client documentation