Re: Informix/FourGen Requirements???

In <caseeval.3.0008DEE5@iaccess.za> caseeval@iaccess.za (CASE Evaluation) writes: >Re: Informix/FourGen platform. >Can anyone offer some advice. We are currently running a >Wyse 7000 3x486 processor SCO Unix machine. All our applications >are written in FourGen CASE running on an Informix On-Line ver 5.1 >platform. >We also run all the FourGen financial applications. >We support at most about 80 concurrent on-line users with about >55 concurrent database connections (sqlturbo's). >Using Stallion Monitor we find that we have a CPU bottleneck, our >disks are plenty fast for the time being (RAID 5x500 meg). >We have 50 % of our users in the ame building as the machine, >with the other 50 % spread over about 1000km radius using TCP/IP >connections. >We find that the response is absolutely awful, and have been told, >I imagine quite rightly, that the machine we are using is inadequate >for the resource hungry FourGen apps. >We are therefore about to upgrade but have been offered two solutions: >1) 3xP5 Pentium Corollary C-Bus II machine running SCO Unix; >2) Quad RISC chip Sun, or Quad RISC Data General running S5R4. >We are also looking at a future growth of about 20% per year. >What we would like to know: >a) which platform (RISC or Intel) is the better option both in the >short and long term; >b) has anyone running FourGen apps out there found a hardware solution >offering sufficient response; >c) what platform/technology is correct for the type of system >we are running. >Other points to consider: >i) upgradability of Informix to ver 6 or ver 7? >ii) hardware increasing network throughput? >iii) obviously price/performance. >We would appreciate any feedback before we commit to a purchase. >Thanx > - Greg ;-) First, I would further investigate resource utilization, specifically the configuration of the database engine. I would look closely at statistics, provided by tbmonitor, for memory usage. I would confirm Monitor's findings on CPU usage. Have you hit any resource limits with your current system? Do your local and remote users experience similar response times? As a point of interest, OnLine DSA, versions 6.00 and above, makes better use of resources, which may yield improved performance in your current system. I recommend more detective work before spending money. Edwin Babadaglian edwinb@panix.com