Bugs/Tricks with Informix 5.xx

I am presently involved in migrating a client's computing environment from Sparc 10/SunOS 4.1.3/Informix OnLine 4.11/FourGen accounting to Sparc 1000/Solaris 2.3/Informix OnLine 5.01/FourGen Accounting and there are a lot of glitches that I have encountered, some of which are worth sharing on the net. 1> I-STAR 5.01.UD3 has a bug that doesn't allow more than one client connection at a time. The only way around is to install I-STAR or I-NET 5.01.UD2 in a seperate directory, copy sqlexecd from that directory to your $Informix/lib directory. It took 8 hrs. and talking to 3 different tech support people to determine this. 2> I-SQL 4.11 has a bug because of which it doesn't work with NIS. ie. all the users who are going to be using isql have to have a entry in the local /etc/passwd file on the machine on which I-SQL is running other wise i_SQL core dumps with out any error message. Supposed to have been fixed in I-SQL 4.12 which is not yet available. Another 10 hrs. worth of work. (TERM, TERMCAP, Solaris 2.X were the original suspects for Tech support ;-) 3> The RELAY MODULE component of I-NET 5.X (which is supposed to improve client/server performance by not starting a server process on client per connection) doesn't work with tools (4GL, I-SQL etc.) of version 4.x. The best part is that there are no tools (except maybe dbaccess) available in version 5.x. So there is no way to actually use the RELAY MODULE. 4> Rightnow I have installed everything on one server machine and two client machines, and the problem is that on one of the client machine which is Solaris2.2/I-NET 5.01.UD2 the application doesn't run. (SOL error -457). While the same application connecting to the same server runs on the other client machine which is SunOS4.1.3/I-NET 4.11.UC1. I'm almost certain that the problem is I-NET 5.01.UD2. There are a few other glitches, which are not too big a deal. Quality of Informix Tech support ------------------------------- From my experience with Imformix tech support during the course of this project I think that they are extremely poor in their knowledge of connectivity products. I spoke to a tech support person (who is supposed to be a connectivity person) who had no clue about the difference in functions of I-NET and I-STAR. Also, they are very slow in identifying a known bug. (see #1 and #2 above). The thing that I have on the good side is that there is never a long wait while calling tech support. Anyone else care to share their experience with tech support. A survey of use of Informix OnLine in client/server environment ---------------------------------------------------------------- The environment that we are moving into is a Sparc1000(4 CPUs) as server two Sparc 10s and a Sparc 2 as client. About 80 OnLine users and about 20 batch and development users. OnLine users are very active very frequent select/update/insert transactions, and response time is critical. I am begining to get the feeling that Informix is not the way to go. (specially with respect to its client/server implementation). Anyone else out there using Informix in an environment similar to this? Any comments/suggestion ? ----------------- Yogen Sanghani ICon Inc. yogen@IConNet.COM (212)972-4266 PS: All standard disclaimers apply.