I think you will have to take this from a slightly different perspective. No, you cannot access Zope's ODB from ODBC, since ODBC is only useful from relational datasets. However, you can use RPC protocols from within MS dev tools like XML-RPC which will allow you to create methods that can be used for remote invocation from other programs if you need other tools to have access to date in the object-database. Exporting data to excel, for example, might involve some sode that creates CSV text in a DTML method, and scraping that with a VBA macro in Excel; that wouldn't be too difficult. That said, as far as corruption goes, there are tools out there to repair a broken ZODB by analyzing the transactions within a Data.fs file, and then using python to correct them. Eventually, also, Zope/ZEO will have some replication features (though there are some brute force methods of doing this already) that could be used in an HA-cluster arrangement. If nothing else, use your favorite relational database, and wrap the datasets in object-oriented code to provide a standardized object API to access the data; that way, if you decide to move the data into the ODB you could do it transparently... Good luck on your Zope advocacy... Sean -----Original Message----- From: Montagne, Michael [mailto:montagne@BOORA.com] Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 11:43 AM To: 'zope@zope.org' Subject: [Zope] Corruption protection Forgive an important but nieve( I think) concern. If I start to use Zope as a database I'm concerned about database corruption and transferability. When a table becomes corrupt in Access it is usually easily fixed or replaced from backup as a last resort. I think PostgreSQL uses seperate files for it's tables so the can be replace if needed. What happens if the Zope database gets corrupt? It is a monolithic file. Also, what about exporting data for use in a different database or program? Can I read the zope database with ODBC? If I ever needed to convert to another database what about exporting the data? These are questions I'm going to have to answer in justifying introducing Zope. I already bought the t-shirt so I'm really hoping I can make this fly at work. -mjm _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope@zope.org http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )