1.1.What is Virtuoso?

OpenLink Virtuoso is the first CROSS PLATFORM Universal Server to implement Web, File, and Database server functionality alongside Native XML Storage, and Universal Data Access Middleware, as a single server solution. It includes support for key Internet, Web, and Data Access standards such as: XML, XPATH, XSLT, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, WebDAV, SMTP, SQL-92, ODBC, JDBC, and OLE-DB. Virtuoso currently supports the following Operating systems - Windows 95/98/NT/2000, Linux (Intel, Alpha, Mips, PPC), Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Unixware, IRIX, Digital UNIX, DYNIX/PTX, FreeBSD, SCO, MacOS X.

Virtuoso is a revolutionary, next generation, high-performance virtual database engine for the Distributed Computing Age. It is a core universal data access technology set to accelerate our advances into the emerging Information Age.

Virtuoso provides transparent access to your existing data sources, which are typically databases from different database vendors.

Through a single connection, Virtuoso will simultaneously connect your ODBC, JDBC, UDBC, OLE-DB client applications and services to data within Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB/2, Informix, Progress, CA-Ingres and other ODBC compliant database engines. All your databases are treated as single logical unit.

The diagram below depicts how applications that are built in conformance with industry standards (such as ODBC, JDBC, UDBC, and OLE-DB) only need to make a single connection via Virtuoso's Virtual Database Engine and end up with concurrent and real-time access to data within different database types.

Further still, Virtuoso exposes all of its functionality to Web Services. This means that your existing infrastructure can be used support Web Services directly without any hint of replacement.