The entire purpose of Visual Traffic is to manage all of your traffic business in an efficient and organized manner. To do this, all of the information you need to operate is placed into a sophisticated relational database management system using SQL called Adaptive Server Anywhere. Looking at the database from a user standpoint, we only see a large file named vtdb.db in the database folder. This single file holds all of your information including advertisers, agencies, orders, invoices, billing, etc.
The database structure is organized and controlled by the Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere program. Visual Traffic software communicates with the database through this SQL database control application. Everything that goes in or out of the database does so under the control of the Adaptive Server Anywhere. It is VT’s job to submit and retrieve this information. In simple terms users interact with Visual Traffic to perform all broadcast operations. Visual Traffic at the same time is maintaining a constant communications stream with the database server as well.
Database control requires a special language and set of protocols for proper communication. This is all done for you by Visual Traffic so you Do not have to be a programmer to use the database features.
You Do not have to understand the database server or even how it works. A classic old horror film contained the line, "there are some things in life that are best left alone." From an end users standpoint, a database server is a perfect example of that philosophy.
There are occasions when you may have to take a cursory look to see what is going on in the database or to see who is connected. For that purpose, Visual Traffic provides three dialogs. You will not have to use them much if any, but in case you do, here is a brief explanation of what they are and how they work.
The Adaptive Server Anywhere dialog can be found as an icon on the System Tray anytime the database is operating. This is a service process that can be started and stopped from the service manager dialog. You can double click the icon to view the dialog. This dialog is normally full of cryptic statements you will not need to interpret. In fact there is not any need for you to look at this dialog unless you are asked to do so by a Visual Traffic service representative who is analyzing a problem. Now that you know what and where it is, we suggest you simply leave it alone.
CAUTION - You will close the database if you click the X or the Shutdown button. You normally Do not want to do this. If you have called up the dialog to take a look, use the minimize button on the top right which will make the dialog disappear but will not close the database which stops VT. If the icon disappears from the System Tray, you have closed the database. You can restart the database from the Service Manager dialog.
For more information, see the following topics:
Database Server Remote Control
Interactive SQL