GNOME-DB is CORBA based and uses ORBit as the CORBA implementation. Basically the system provides an IDL file as the interface to the client. For every different data source type (ODBC, Sybase, Informix, MySQL, LDAP, ...) a server must be written. This server ideally is a shared library which is linked with a small driver program to form a standalone CORBA server. The shared driver approach makes it possible to use the server as a library for the client, reducing round trip time (no sockets and context switches required). The shared library can be executed as a standalone program through the GOAD library, which automagically wraps the shared library with a simple main program to execute the server in it's own address space, isolating the server from client crashes.
The advantage of using a CORBA server is, that the server may run on another machine, balancing the load. This is possible because ORBit is small and fast. You can use the same server from a CORBA aware scripting language and you might do tracing and transaction control in the server, without needing to change the client.
The most complicated server type is the ODBC server. The reason for this is, that ODBC itself provides you with the capability to use different ODBC implementations (maps to different CORBA servers) itself. So you have two points where you can (mis)configure the system. See figure gda-arch-odbc
To configure, first you'll need to configure ODBC datasources, by having the .odbc.ini file in your home directory. Then, provide the following information:
GDA Name: theone that more suits your needs
Provider: gda-odbc
DSN: this is any valid ODBC DSN that you pass directly to the ODBC driver manager
Description: to your choice
Configurator: None