Re: character-based tools on NT?

junet@informix.com (June Tong) wrote: :Joe Lumbley (jlumbley@netcom.com) wrote: : :: No, I think it is the same issue. Informix wants to position itself as :: a vendor of scalable, cross-OS, cross-platform databases and tools. To :: say that we have to write scripts to do something in UNIX and to have to :: do the same job another way in NT is not a very good cross-OS strategy. :: Sure, go ahead and give us the pretty GUI tools for the command-impaired, :: but let us keep the character-based tools for cross-platform compatibility. : :: Probably the scripts are not the most important part (I don't know of anybody :: using onmonitor in a script but hey, who knows?). The most important part :: to me in a cross-OS environment is the documentation and training :: element. Having to document and train for two totally separate methods of :: doing such things as starting up the database would be a needlessly-complex :: chore, even if the GUI tool had the equivalent functionality as the character- :: based tool. : :Informix's commitment to character-based "tools" applies to 4GL/I-SQL. :Onmonitor is a (pseudo-graphical) utility, which is replaced on NT by IECC or :ROM or whatever. (I never use NT, so don't ask me any NT questions.) : :Informix is also committed to maintaining the command-line interface that you :are used to, so pretty much everything (that I can think of off the top of my :head) that you used to do in onmonitor, is available to you both on Unix and :NT in a command-line utility, such as onspaces or onstat. These are the same :on Unix and NT, so you shouldn't have a training issue there. : :I think the scripts ARE the important part, and, as you say, nobody (I hope) :is writing scripts for onmonitor, but they are writing scripts for onspaces :and onstat and the other command-line utilities, and those can be ported to :NT using the NT command-line utilities. : :I'm sorry if you loved onmonitor, but it HAS been taken out of ODS on NT. I do all the DBA work for all my customers. I am however neither writing many scripts (I do occasionally use some I have downloaded, but non are important to me) nor using much of the command line utilities. I do however relize and agree with the importanse of these utilities on Unix as well as NT. What I do use all the time however is onmonitor. I use it for the first installation, starting and stopping engines, monitoring usage, spaces and so on. As it can sometimes be a month or more between each time I use this the idea of using command line tools where you have to remember a large number of extremely cryptic commands is appaling to me to the extent that I would start disliking Informix if I had to do it. The commands are made for scripts and generally ok for that purpose. If you need them often enough they may be ok for direct use as well. They are not for occational human consumption. Basically I *need* onmonitor to survive. Informix seems still to lack the necessary understanding of what a large number of their customers need. The situation for new servers, including Windows NT, doesn't look too good. I have taken a look at the situation as it looks from my viewpoint and described it below. I would hope someone could comment on it as I don't realy see the near term solutions Informix intends to present us with. For our current Unix installations onmonitor is very nice as it can easily be run over a slow modem connection. This is also a prerequisite currently. We will however go to at least 28k modem connections (and hopefully soon ISDN) all over and have TCP/IP ability on these. A GUI, particularly a Java based one, would become feasible then. June mentioned the ROM (the downloadable one) as an alternative. But as anyone who have seen it knows it isn't of course. It's only a very simple tool for doing a few things to the databases themselves (I don't use it, and don't see it as all that usefull - sorry to all those who have acclaimd it as a good tool). There are no server tools for managing logs, spaces and so on appart from what you can do via SQL. The IECC seems to be Informixes answer. I don't know if it's available. As far as I can see it was announced as a tool on October 22, 1996 (ref.: http://www.informix.com/informix/corpinfo/ifxnews/press/1996/iecc.htm) and announce as available on June 30, 1997 (ref.: http://www.informix.com/informix/corpinfo/ifxnews/press/1997/ieccromf.htm) However it isn't mentioned in the product section of the web site. The only "description" of it I can find is a whitepaper (ref.: http://www.informix.com/informix/corpinfo/zines/whiteidx.htm) That is as usual written by some marketing person who believe in..... (I shouldn't say that). There isn't that much real information. From a screen shot it does however look like an extended version of the ROM. At the database level it seems to have functions for alerts, control panels (whatever that is), logs, reports, sessions and spaces in additon to the databases available in the free ROM. It also seems to have tools for data replication, event monitor, High Performance Loader and scheduler. It also seems to have "scripting" facilities in the form of Java code. ("Seems" because I don't know how and for what these scripts can be used. They are mentioned in connection with the scheduling facilities.) It has API's for connection to and from other tools. This all looks fine. Actually very nice, and I would probably switch my toolsets over some time if this where fully available and could do all the things we need and where extremely easy to set up. (Remember for onmonitor there is *no* setup appart from a simple modem connection.) However do I have to buy it? Can I buy it? Must I pay a lot? Or even anything at all? Informix's large customers would shure pay for something like the IECC. If it does all the things it looks like it does and do them well it looks like a great product. However again the issue is all the small installations. If I (or my smaller customers) have to pay for something like this they would refuse. If they don't I do. I am their DBA. I would be the only user. I actually demand from Informix to be able to manage (and manage remotely) my customers databases without having to buy yet another thing for the purpose. There have to be tools that can be used for relatively simple management of the engine when I buy it. There allways was and if Informix is abandoning this we, and therfore they, have a problem. The client side of the IECC seems to run as an MS Windows program or as a Java applet in a web browser. It doesn't say wether it will be available as a Java application (not needing the web browser). If it where one could conceivably run it using Java tree tier connectivity, and not depend on I-Connect. I-Connect also isn't enough for all the functionality of this tool. It has at least to support some kind of remote procedure call or some other connectivity to run applications, read log files and so on on the server. They say the IECC will be able to run over the web as it will have a Java based user interface. Fine. What are the requirements for that? Is TCP/IP and a JVM on the