Delphi & Informix, licensing

I have an existing 4GL program written many years ago running on Online on Solaris that the client would like converted to Delphi front end (we also develop in Delphi) accessing the Online db on the Solaris box. The big issue is using only a single client license to handle about 8 users of the Online db from the Delphi front ends. Most of the users are just doing queries of the database (telephone directory, about 20k entries) using partial key access. Only one or two users periodically perform updates or inserts (and this is only done one row at a time). Anybody know how I can connect these Delphi front ends using only 1 backend license? TIA, G Gary Holbrook Softbrook Corporation gary@softbrook.com

What your talking about is having seperate tiers. (Engine) ( 1 User ) ( > 1 User ) DB Tier <-----------> Data Interface Tier <--------------------> User Interface Tier The important part for you is that the Data Interface Tier queries/updates the DB tier alone. This requires 1 user / 1 connection. The user Interface Tier passes requests to the Data Interface Tier which are queued up and executed. Results are passed back again. This can be done fairly easily in VB, what you need to do is find out how to do it in Delphi. The software tool isn't the important bit its the architecture that is. HTH. BTW each Tier is probably on different servers. Maybe trying reading Business Objects for VB6 , to get the concept clear.