CIS is the new name for Omni ASE. The biggest difference is that CIS is included with Adaptive Server Enterprise as standard. Actually, this is not completely accurate; the ability to connect to other ASEs and ASEs, including Microsoft's, is included as standard. If you need to connect to DB2 or Oracle you have to obtain an additional licence. So, what is it?

CIS is a means of connecting two servers together so that seamless cross-server joins can be executed. It is not just restricted to selects, pretty much any operation that can be performed on a local table can also be performed on a remote table. This includes dropping it, so be careful!

What servers can I connect to?

* Sybase ASE

* Microsoft SQL Server

* IBM DB2

* Oracle