Developing an authenticated application is a simple process: a special authentication signature is incorporated into the database, and a second signature is incorporated into your application. When the application connects to the database, the signatures are compared to authenticate the application. The following steps are required to develop an authenticated SQL Anywhere application:

All the database tools included with SQL Anywhere, including Sybase Central, Interactive SQL, and the utilities, such as dbbackup, are self-authenticating. They are unrestricted in their operations against any authenticated database. If the database itself is not authenticated, the tools act in a restricted, read-only fashion.

You must use the OEM Edition of the SQL Anywhere database server for an authenticated application. This edition differs from the usual database server only in that it processes authentication instructions. The authentication instructions are ignored by other editions of the database server. If you do not use the authenticated database server, no restrictions are placed on unauthenticated applications.