Re: Informix al Rescate de Telmex!

In article <C9KJCt.DGK@news.iastate.edu> rjsalvad@iastate.edu (Ricardo J Salvador) writes: >Lo siguiente lo extraigo del nu'mero 2 (1993) del >Infomix Times, por creer les sea de intere's. De >forma similar en que Informix detallo' co'mo >rescataron a Hacienda con uno de sus productos >(en el nu'mero 1 del mismo perio'dico), aqui' va >la epope'yica historia de como un paquete de >computadora constituye la diferencia entre la >civilizacio'n y el subdesarrollo ;). > >Hasta moztla, >Ricardo >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= >SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP: INFORMIX >AND TELE'FONOS DE ME'XICO > I'm very happy to hear that TELMEX is finally catching in technology and doing its best to improve its awful telecommunications services, and that INFORMIX a great company is taking the challenge to make succed at this. A couple of comments about the article though: .......... Paragraphs deleted......... >Mexican Government Wants Results >When the Mexican government sold Telmex to >the consortium, it defined rigorous goals for >improving overall phone service. Chiefly, the >government specified that Telmex must average a >12 percent annual growth rate in line installation >over four years, adding 2.7 million lines to the >4.7 million already in place. It also stipulated that >installation delays should be cut from 180 days to >90 days, and that Telmex must provide basic >service to any town with a population greater >than 5,000. Installation and initial hook-up time, in the capital, were (are?) ,in the average, more in the order of 24 months or 1,020 days (for normal citizens/users). > >Informix/UNIX Bring Dramatic Improvements >Telmex installed a distributed computing solution >based on Informix software and the UNIX >operating system that dramatically improved the >speed with which Telmex could gather and >transfer information. This has enabled the >company to achieve greater productivity and >efficiency, and to deliver improved service to its >customers. >Today, Telmex runs INFORMIX-OnLine, >Informix's powerful, on-line transaction >processing (OLTP) database server, in a >distributed environment on UNIX workstations >from Sun, Unisys, and Bull in 12 regional >offices. On-line applications now handle critical >Telmex activities, such as service order requests, >line repair, billing, and line installation, promptly >and systematically. The new system, for >example, automatically dials Telmex's 2,000 >phone switches daily and downloads billing >information - calls made, duration of calls, the >calling number- to the UNIX platforms. This >information is then uploaded periodically to >Hewlett-Packard minicomputers and IBM >mainframes in Mexico City, which process the >data and retransmit it electronically back to the >regional offices. billing information is then >available to clerks to respond on-line to customer >inquiries. The above described is NOT in the field of 'distributed computing environments'. Distributed processing means accessing the data from remotely located hosts, and processing it 'as-is' and 'where-is' to produce the desired computations requested from a distantly located site. From the way the above is stated: 'down-loading billing information from its 12 regional offices", sounds more like good old 'centralized batch processing', instead of distributed OLTP. Why?, because gathering all the information from its regional offices into a single loacation, means centralizing. And why batch processing?, because since the desired data is repliacated into the Mexico City's host, then there is no need for conccurent accesses, and hence no need for on-line transaction processing. .......... more Paragraphs deleted......... It's really easy to use 'buzz words' in this kind of promotional news, I truely hope that the solution both companies are trying to implementis going into the field of Distributed OLTP systems, doing otherwise will only maintain an inefficient growing dinosaur. Greetings, Eduardo