Online Instance Question

Hi Am kind of a novice to Informix and networking. Some help on the following would be most appreciated. Thanks. Woody. ------------------------ If on a single host machine, I have a large database (A) which is constantly being updated and other databases of similar size or relatively smaller sized databases resident, which would be a better Informix solution, given the following: o Informix environment - Informix 5.03xxxxx o Database A is not dependent on any other database. o The application that owns database A is does not access any other database. o The applications that own the other databases, do need to access database A. I guess the two possible Informix db solutions would be: 1 Create a large online instance and lump all the databases in it. or 2 Create online instances such that databases that logically belong together reside in their own online instances. Access to "external" databases would then be made through I-STAR. Given that I am running all the databases on one host, would choosing 1 over 2, imply that I have lower network overheads? Does accessing a "server" database residing on the same machine, require requests to go out into the network or does loopback confine it within the machine? Are there any speed advantages by choosing option 1?