[ensembl-dev] variation api - mapping between dbsnp and ensembl

[Andrea Edwards]

Hello

I have written a small script to get all of the known snps for cow from 
ensembl. I have been told the only variation data for cow in ensembl is 
from dbSNP

Questions
1. How do i know which build of dbsnp is used in a particular ensembl 
build? I have not been able to find any release information for the 
external databases used by a particular ensembl release

2. How do i know that the genome build of the variation in dbsnp is the 
same as the genome build in ensembl. If i look at a cow snp in dbsnp it 
tells me what genome build it is associated with. What happens if the 
ensembl database is mapped to a different genome assembly than dbSNP?

thanks