Running Informix on 2 different Servers in parrallel

Hi, everybody. Got a question for the experts. I have a client who runs Informix Dynamic Server 7.20 UC3 on a SCO Unixware 7.01 box and has done for 5+ years. We had a disaster recovery PC of identical configuration which was tested regularly to see if the customer's ontape backups could be restored. Unfortunately the motherboard on this PC has failed and a repair would be prohibitive, so we are looking at upgrading the disaster PC. Unfortunately our research has found out that Unixware 7.01 is not compatible with modern hardware and never will be as SCO no longer support it. Herefore we must upgrade software too. My question is thus, what parameters are important in being able to restore ontapes. Could we change to MS Windows 2000 Server and still be able to restore? Could we change from using RAW DISK SPACE to filesystems? Is just the onconfig file important or are other parameters used? Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Hopalong wrote: > Hi, everybody. Got a question for the experts. > > I have a client who runs Informix Dynamic Server 7.20 UC3 on a SCO > Unixware 7.01 box and has done for 5+ years. > > We had a disaster recovery PC of identical configuration which was > tested regularly to see if the customer's ontape backups could be > restored. > > Unfortunately the motherboard on this PC has failed and a repair would > be prohibitive, so we are looking at upgrading the disaster PC. > Unfortunately our research has found out that Unixware 7.01 is not > compatible with modern hardware and never will be as SCO no longer > support it. Herefore we must upgrade software too. > > My question is thus, what parameters are important in being able to > restore ontapes. Could we change to MS Windows 2000 Server and still be > able to restore? Could we change from using RAW DISK SPACE to > filesystems? Is just the onconfig file important or are other > parameters used? No, IDS can only restore to the exact same OS and minor version number of IDS on compatible hardware (ie Solaris on Intel cannot restore to Solaris on Sparc). Don't go windows, you already know UNIX, go with Linux. There are many excellent releases of Linux and IDS runs very well on them. You will not be able to get IDS 7.20 (which BTW is very old, out of support, and not even Y2K compliant). But you could build the new server, port everything there, and make that the new main box while building a new backup box, also running Linux. I'd recommend going to IDS 9.40UC5 or later. You'll find that besides the faster new hardware, Linux is much faster than SCO was and very compatible with Unixware. The port should go very smoothly. Also consider using replication to make a hot backup instead of relying on backup restores for a warm backup only. Both HDR and ER are rock solid in IDS 9.40. Art S. Kagel

"Art S. Kagel" <kagel@bloomberg.net> wrote in message news:41BF66EE.1090103@bloomberg.net... > Don't go windows, you already know UNIX, go with Linux. There are many > excellent releases of Linux and IDS runs very well on them. You will not > be able to get IDS 7.20 (which BTW is very old, out of support, and not > even Y2K compliant). But you could build the new server, port everything > there, and make that the new main box while building a new backup box, > also running Linux. I'd recommend going to IDS 9.40UC5 or later. As a matter of interest, now that IBM has extended the end-of-support to v7, why would you recommend a user on a very old version of v7, by all accounts not very innovative, move to v9? Not saying your wrong but one of my users asked me the same question today: "Why should I move to v9 if I'm happy on v7?". "To help pay for my holiday in The Maldives" is the actual answer, but didn't seem politic, so I said I'd think about it. Thing is, I'd like to sure I'm not missing anything before replying. For a user who is comfortable with v7, does not want to use user-defined datatypes or datablades (in my experince, 90%++ of them), and whose database is modest enough in size that the 2G chunk limit is not a major inconvenience, what other imperatives are there? cheers Neil

Neil Truby wrote: > As a matter of interest, now that IBM has extended the end-of-support to v7, > why would you recommend a user on a very old version of v7, by all accounts > not very innovative, move to v9? Not saying your wrong but one of my users > asked me the same question today: "Why should I move to v9 if I'm happy on > v7?". "To help pay for my holiday in The Maldives" is the actual answer, > but didn't seem politic, so I said I'd think about it. Thing is, I'd like > to sure I'm not missing anything before replying. For a user who is > comfortable with v7, does not want to use user-defined datatypes or > datablades (in my experince, 90%++ of them), and whose database is modest > enough in size that the 2G chunk limit is not a major inconvenience, what > other imperatives are there? There are a /lot/ of "nice to haves" if no one killer reason. After all v7 is a stable supported product. The nice to haves can be hard to make into a convincing business argument from the customer's point of view as they may not see why they would benefit from them. The best reason I can come up with is that HDR (on which we rely on heavily) is brilliant in 9.4 - never had a problem with it. 7.3 sometimes has the odd hiccup although it was usually easy to fix. We use Informix as a DBMS for our application and it would make our developers' lives easier not to have to develop for two versions and not to be restricted to the V7 feature set. Some of our v7 systems run on obsolete/unsupported operating systems such as Windows NT Workstation and AIX 4.3 - usually we upgrade them at the same time. However, I agree with you: unless IBM stop supporting it there is no great imperative for users content with v7 to migrate. Even then with no killer bugs having emerged so far, we probably have enough experience to keep them ticking over until the OS they run on and whether that OS supports available hardware becomes an issue. Ben.

"Neil Truby" <neil.truby@ardenta.com> schrieb: >For a user who is >comfortable with v7, does not want to use user-defined datatypes or >datablades (in my experince, 90%++ of them), and whose database is modest >enough in size that the 2G chunk limit is not a major inconvenience, what >other imperatives are there? Very good question. For me, so far there are none, especially in the light of the extended EOL date given by IBM. And there are still many users out there who are perfectly content with 5.x! Regards, Richard