How do I connect to my Database directly?

Updated: Friday, 12 November 2021 at 09:11PM

Author: Eric Vasbinder

When Vista (or Spectrum, ProContractor, or JobPac) is hosted by Viewpoint, it is protected inside of a network that normally prevents direct access to its database. Access to Vista hosted in our cloud is normally done using our powerful Vista Remote Link (VRL) technology, which allows the Vista rich client to run locally on the end users' client workstations, and connect over the Internet to Vista. VRL works using the same protocols as web browsers.

Tech Tidbit: Vista using VRL works by sending traffic over port 443, using the HTTPS/TLS protocol.

For some applications, however, direct access to the Vista database, using standard mechanisms to access a Microsoft SQL database (i.e. ODBC), is needed. For customers using Vista in an on-premise network (e.g. corporate LAN), this access is the standard way to access Vista. However, when Vista is hosted in our cloud, this is not possible since Vista in our cloud is protected behind our firewall.

Tech Tidbit: Direct LAN connections to the Vista database are usually done using ODBC, with traffic proceeding over port 1433.

As such, for third party applications to connect to cloud-hosted Vista, a method of opening our network to your network is needed. This requires either:

A. TLS Database Endpoint (preferred)

B. An IPSEC VPN (Virtual Private Network)

IMPORTANT: For security reasons in our cloud, Viewpoint does not allow direct, unprotected connectivity over the Internet to customer databases.

Such connectivity MUST happen over our encrypted TLS Database Endpoint or an IPSEC VPN tunnel.