Re: Informix vs. Oracle: The Support chapter

On Tue, 26 Aug 1997, Nils Myklebust wrote: > dbadmin@svilosa.bis.bg (Milen Metodiev) wrote: > :And there is a point in this contract which is highly unacetable for us: > : "INFORMIX doesn't support any product for which the new version is > : existing. Maximum period for upgrade is six months." > > But they do support it in the sense that you get help with any > problems you may have. If you find a defect in the software they may > however require that you move to a newer version to have that defect > fixed. They do not supply interrim releases or patches (the > letter/digit combination at the end of the version number) for older > versions. They generally stop supplying these a year after general > availability of a product. At that time you need a later version. Hrm. We've never had any trouble getting support for our older 5 stuff (some (most) is around 5.05). Patches from Informix are very had to find, and for good reason -- they're generally fast untested fixes intended for interim use only. However they will patch bugs in old versions if you (and/or your company) has enough clout or persistence. > :They said us that INFORMIX doesn't support version 5 at all, while they > :do it, but from next year - maybe NO MORE. > > Informix does support version 5. The latest version is 5.08 I think. > It's of course on limited maintenance which basically mean they will > only fix sever problems. You can however both buy the product and get > any support contract on it. They have no stated plan to stop this that > I know about. 5.08 is relatively recent and very solid, IMO. If you don't need the added functionality from the 7.x products, or have a relatively small machine (especially if its a uniprocessor), I see no reason to go to 7. One caveat -- there are some nasty archive bugs in 5.03 --> 5.06 (inclusive) so I'd stay away from these. Since the negative npused bug was fixed in (I believe) 5.05, that would leave 5.07 and 5.08 as acceptable versions (IMO). -Richard