Re: Advice on upgrade SE (v.2.1 to 7.x !!) on SCO

In article <844697966.13371.0@nabson.derwent.co.uk>, Nick Abson <nabson@derwent.co.uk> writes >We are intending to upgrade an old Informix database (version 2.1?) >and supporting 4GL (1.1) applications to current versions of the >software; so that we can get support, and also to enable us to use >some modern reporting tools to access the data. NB this is not my >idea, so please do not shout at me. > >Has anyone ever tried this? > Very,very unlikely, I have done 4GL 2.x -> 4.x -> 6.x and SE 2.1 -> 4.1 -> 6.0 upgrades but not all in one go. >I've read the FAQ and monitored your group for a while, but obviously >the information on this kind of leap in versions is thin on the >ground. I'd be very grateful if you could you correct/clarify/add to >the following: > >Seems that the problems with upgrading to version 7.x are: > >* Performance : (Online only?), should I be looking at upgrading my >SCO box? Both SE 7 and Online 7 need more resources than 2. see below. >* rowids - some of our programs use rowid references for updates. The >other posts I've read seem to suggest that this is only an issue if >you use some of the clever features of the Online server. Is this >true, or should I start to worry about it (we've no intention of >going to Online - no DBA skills available etc). Yes only if you use fragmentation which I doubt you would use. >* Buggy versions of Informix for SCO 3.2? I also hear that Informix >are no longer developing for this version of SCO. Should I care ? >advise pls. > I would upgrade SCO to the latest version - we are upgrading a SCO site and the moment. I would go to the latest version. >More general advice gratefully received! Particualrly of the kind: >'don't bother upgrading to 7.x go to 4.0, it works with Business >Objects; doesn't kill your server; costs about $100; is completely >backwards compatible with all previous versions and will be supported >for the next 4yrs - giving you plenty of time to resign'. Or maybe >not. ;-) > >Notes on current system: >--------------------------------------- >The application is a sales order processing system developed in >INFORMIX-4GL using the RDS - all code is compiled as pcode. The >database is INFORMIX-SE. The app is not particualarly sophisticated >(create/update/delete/enquiry forms and reports). >Runs on a single processor Pentium PC (SCO 3.2), 64 Megs of RAM. 8/10 >concurrent users - the performance is tolerable. > I'm always tempted to upgrade to the latest version as long as it is stable. However for machine with only a few users now is not a good time to upgrade. SE is being phased out and Online Workgroup Server (1-16 users only) has just arrived. Kinda hard to say which way to go as OWS has not been used in the wild much yet and so I'm not sure how stable it will be. It's based on the current Online code but is still not widely used in a live enviroment. >VERSIONS >------------------ >I'm not sure what version the RDBMS is but dbschema and dbload both >report INFORMIX-SQL 2.1. >form4gl and fgldb both report INFORMIX-4GL 1.1. > >TIA > >Nick (nabson@derwent.co.uk) > >Nick Abson : nabson@derwent.co.uk > -- David Williams