Standard Engine and OnLine - Which one and When?

Path: emory!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!warwick!kingpol!cs_e266 From: cs_e266@kingston.ac.uk (Edwin Yau) Newsgroups: comp.databases.informix Message-ID: <1992Jan14.134405.8825@kingston.ac.uk> Date: 14 Jan 92 13:44:05 GMT Sender: phyd@cix.compulink.co.uk Organization: Kingston Polytechnic Nntp-Posting-Host: sappho Standard Engine and OnLine - Which one? - and When? We're a small software house based in the south of England developing Informix-SQL and 4GL based systems. Recently we've been hearing more about the OnLine product and have had a few customers who want to know more about the difference between it an the Informix `Standard Engine' (SE). We know that OnLine can handle Binary Large OBjects (BLOBs) and that it moves faster but what is the primary difference between it and SE ? Is the underlying software the same or is OnLine the result of a complete re-write? It's difficult to know quite when to propose OnLine and Standard Engine for a customer, besides the obvious Air-line booking systems and Stock-Exchange applications it's difficult to know where to draw the line. Although Informix have been helpful in supplying a list of differences between the two products I have not had a definitive answer on the situtations that would demand either SE or OnLine. I was recently told SE would happily support around 200 users (concurrently) given a decent processor (such as a Sparc Station) to drive it. Also, has anybody used OnLine, or better still - has anyone used BOTH products? If you have then did you notice any great improvement or difference between them? Aside a little now, if OnLine supports BLOBs and SE doesn't then what's to stop users of SE just adding a column into a table giving a filename pointer to the disc storage of a BLOB and accessing it that way? It would only take around twenty to thirty good C routines to drive it. Please e-mail me not at the above address but at - phyd@cix.compulink.co.uk Many thanks for your time and help, Brian Leake. /-- Brian Leake, e-mail replies to : phyd@cix.compulink.co.uk ONLY please -\\ | Tel: Home (+44) 276 23662 Work (+44) 734 776144 Fax (+44) 734 776055 | \\------------- "No problems, Only Solutions" - K.Flynn, Tron --------------/