Re: Informix on NT platform - Impact of 100 to 400+ Users

"Rob Culhane" <gsdrtc1@worldnet.att.net> wrote: :We are considering implementing an Informix Online Rel 7 server in an NT :4 way SMP environment. We are concerned about the viability of initially :starting with 100+ users and growing to possibly 400+ users. Looking for :other people's experiences including maximum users on NT before :degradation? :Questions regarding impact of combining startup warehouse with OLTP :applications on same platform also exist. Just to add some long term perspective to the discussion it might be interesting for people to check out http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/BARC/ which contains lots of information on what Microsoft (and several others) are doing in large scale computing. Particularly Jim Gray's page (at http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/barc/Gray/) is interesting. You may be surprised. Studying it a little you will also see that this is to a large extent on a research level yet. Some of it is however implemented by Informix in the form of their XPS database and the Universal Server. These are available on Unix now, but will also be ported to NT. Yes, I am quite sure even XPS will be available and viable on NT, but it may take some time. Interestingly there is also a paper where Michael Stonebraker is one of the authors. It's on the NASA Erth Observing Project on how to implement pentabyte (1000 Terabyte) databases (proposing to use Unix as the base OS of course). This is the contract Informix is now somehow involved with. Check out: http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/barc/Gray/EOS_DIS/default.htm Otherwise Microsoft has also released their own TP mointor (Viper) and are doing other more near term things that *might* make NT more viable for larger installations. This is *not* and indorsment of NT or Microsoft enterprice type products, just that one shouldn't discount them as easily as Detroit discounted the Japanese auto manufacturers several years ago. Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org