Ingres by itself works with one database at a time on your own computer. Therefore, to access a single database on a single computer, just install Ingres on your local computer.

When your computer is part of a network, Ingres Net allows you to access a single database stored on another computer from your local computer. Therefore, to access a database on a remote computer, you must install Ingres Net both on your local computer and the remote computer.

For information, see the System Administrator Guide. For information about using Ingres Net with Ingres Star, see Setup for Remote Database Access.

The Enterprise Access products allow you to access data stored in non-Ingres databases. Therefore, to access a non-Ingres database, install the appropriate Enterprise Access for that database type. See the guides that are specific to that Enterprise Access.

Ingres Star gives you access to multiple databases simultaneously. You need not even know where the data you need resides. The other databases and their configurations are invisible to you. You work transparently with Ingres Star distributed database as if it were a single local Ingres database on your own computer.

Combining Ingres Star with Ingres Net gives you access to remote as well as local databases, no matter where those databases are stored on your network.

Combining Ingres Star with Enterprise Access products allows you to access both non-Ingres and Ingres databases, or even several different types of non-Ingres databases. For example, you can create a distributed database that contains Ingres, DB2, and IMS data. By joining them together in a single distributed database, you can perform complex operations such as joins and subselects between DB2 and IMS data that would be very difficult without the use of Ingres Star.

Combining Ingres Star with Ingres Net and Enterprise Access or EDBC products allows you to access both Ingres and non-Ingres databases simultaneously, anywhere on your network.