Re: Informix 5 vs. 7

Richard Spitz <richard.spitz@ana.med.uni-muenchen.de> writes: >> and am wondering if it makes any sense for a brand new installation to >> go with 5 instead of 7? What are some of the advantages of getting 7? >Advantages: > >Better supported by 3rd-party tools, like backup programs etc. >Built-in networking >Very tunable (cuts both ways - see below) > >Disadvantages: > >Very tunable - lots of parameters to get lost in >More expensive (?) than 5.x The tunability I don't consider a disadvantage, because I already have experience with 7.22 and none with Informix 5. I think I'm more likely to get lost with 5 trying to figure out how to do things I already know how in 7, or that can't be done in 5... Tell me more about the "built-in networking" - what exactly does Informix 5 lack? This site is definitely going to be accessing the database via TCP/IP - the database is meant as part of the back end to a CGI application on a web site. With 7 all I'd have to do is create a sqlhosts file and an /etc/services entry on both sides, and clients would automatically be talking to the database server over the net. Is this not the case with Informix 5? >We are sticking with our version 5 of Online (presently at 5.07) be- >cause we'd have to recompile lots of frontend code (4GL, ESQL/C) with >their respective new versions if we switched to Online 7.x. It's >not worth the hassle IMHO, since we were told on several occasions >by Informix reps. that on a single processor machine we wouldn't see >any noticeable performance benefits. > >If I had to start completely anew, I'd probably go with version 7.22. That was also my impression, that people stick with 5 because it's not worth the hassle of the upgrade & relearning, but that new installs should be 7. This place is starting fresh, but they got 5 because it's less expensive, and I'm trying to see if they made the right choice. I know I have a bias for 7 because I'm already familiar with it, so I'm trying to look beyond that bias and see if it's the right choice for them... -- Cos (Ofer Inbar) -- cos@leftbank.com cos@cs.brandeis.edu -- The Left Bank Operation -- lbo@leftbank.com http://www.leftbank.com "GUIs normally make it simple to accomplish simple actions and impossible to accomplish complex actions." --Doug Gwyn (22/Jun/91 in comp.unix.wizards)