Re: NEWBIE Informix product advice

In <6bash9$htr$1@usenet88.supernews.com> "JD West" <jdwest@discoverynet.com.BOUNCESPAM> writes: >We are in need of some advice, as to which Informix product would be >suitable for our needs. As far as engines are concerned, you can choose from a variety of options in the Online Dynamic Server (ODS) range. This product set basically competes along with Sybase, Oracle, DB2 and to an extent, SQL Server. In addition, Informix still sells their low end database product called Standard Engine (SE). SE is robust and fast and easy to maintain, but does not have a full feature set, is unlikely to be on Informix's product list in the long term, and does not scale to gigantic sizes (although GB sized databases with 10's of users does not scare it overly). SE is probably Informix's nearest offering to Clipper. >For the back end, is there an NT product? Yes, some (all?) of the ODS range run on NT. >Is it stable? Hmmmm. Let's just say it's as stable as the underlying platform :) >offices connecting over a slow WAN that need access to the application. >Would it be better to set up a UNIX box, and telnet in? We are leaning >towards an NT solution due to previous experience with the OS, but want it >to be stable, and be remotely accessible. Over a slow WAN, telnet access is tedious to say the least. Although a text based Informix 4GL solution may be the quickest and simplest for you I wouldn't like to be a user on the other end of that connection. Probably best to go for a client/server style of arrangement. OTOH, pseudo graphical compilers like 4J's offer acceptable performance over slow lines, produce a decent result and offer the advantages of a server-centric development environment. >For the front end, we do not particularly want or need a GUI interface but >it seems to be a requirement nowadays. If we go GUI, is there any advantage >to using Informix's tools vs. Powerbuilder, VC, or VB? Would a GUI interface >running on a Win95 machine accessing an Informix database on an NT server be >slow over a WAN link? Or does it matter? Depends. Your primary concern is the volume of data returned in routine queries on the database. Whatever tool you choose *must* do whatever filtering it can on the database host and return only the absolute minimum of data. An application partitioning tool like Informix New Era is what you're looking for, but there are others. >Are the front-end development tools difficult? We have experience in >Clipper, VB, VC++, Access and about 20 other batch and scripting languages. No comment. This has to be the most contentious of debates. I favour Java clients and Informix 4GL for the backend stuff, but there are as many advocacy groups as there are developers at the moment. As mentioned above Informix offer New Era for GUI development, but my impression is that this is a *big* system development tool and not to be entered into lightly. Maybe your best bet is to use what you know and stick with C++ (New Era generates C++ on the way through the compile cycle), or VB. 2c -- Bryan Tonnet batonnet@phase4.com.au