Re: informix site vs. user licenses

marchey@interval-intl.com wrote: :My company is investigating licensing for a large user site. We have been told :by Informix that the concept of 'site licensing' (i.e. unlimited users per :site) does not exist and that we must license for a number of users (e.g., :500). I find this very hard to believe, although I am new to the Informix :world. Me too. It simply has to exist. Then again their are many things that "have to exist" that doesn't... :I have been reading previous mails, and am confused about the licensing :strategy. Some responses indicated a limit on a specific number of users in :OnLine V7: :>but with Informix v7 if you enter a serial number for 'x' users, the :>kernel will really prevent you to connect more than 'x' users. The above is *not* correct. Informix rightly trust you to buy their products for the number of users you have. If this where not the case may be your backups wouldn't run because there where no more "users" available. Informix might get into trouble with such a limitation. It's too hard to know what a "user" is. A single user loging in multiple times from the same workstation is also normally counted as only one user, although this isn't stated anywhere in their license "agreament" and is an issue of some (though very very little) confusion. :Another response stated that a license number that contains a AAB#J indicates :unlimited users: :>AAB#A is a single user licence and AAB#J is an unlimited license (add as :>many users as you like. I don't know about this. Be aware however that there is a big difference between different versions. 5.x and earlier where priced based on machine type and other things. Old history if you do not have to buy extra licenses for applications that need these old versions for some reason. On 5.x and earlier there where unlimited licenses available. From 6.x and on the pricing became user based and is independent of machine type, except for the minimum number of licenses you can buy for each machine. Nils.Myklebust@ccmail.telemax.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company