transactions lasting over two processes

Hello out there, I have a quite silly question, but I would really like you to give me serious comments if possible: Is it possible to start a transaction from within one application (process) and stop (rollback or commit) it from within another application? To my opinion this requires a kind of unique transaction-ID that has to be given. And I doubt that this is provided. I think, the only way to solve my problem, is to spawn a separate process that lives for the time of the transaction and that acts as a server to the other applications that start and stop transactions. Has anybody any experience? Any hints, warnings, guidelines, security considerations? Do other DB-management systems than Informix products allow this? Can you think of a sample application where this mechanism could be of use? Please send me e-mail if you have any suggestions. Thanks in advance Thomas -- -------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Kieninger Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz DFKI-GmbH Tel: +49-631-205-3485 Postfach 2080 Fax: +49-631-205-3210 67608 Kaiserslautern E-Mail: kieni@dfki.uni-kl.de WWW: http://www.dfki.uni-kl.de/~kieni/cv.html