Re: database connections and licensing

informix@interval-intl.com wrote: : I believe that Informix licenses the ODS 7.x per database connection : ("user"). I received this reply to a query, and I'd like to know if the : statements are accurate: : : "Even though Inet has disappeared off of the marketing charts, it : still is the Informix communication DLL which connects to the Informix : Server (ODBC or not). This is true only to the extent that you still buy MS Windows connectivity software from Informix. Only the ignorant do that. These products stink so heavily that a normal person can't stand beeing in their vicinity for even a short periode of time. The stench comes both from the internal technology and the installation procedure. Nothing short of throwing it all into a garbage dump and making something completely new would help out at all. I have yet to grasp how a company that make such greate database products can't get their act together on the connectivity side. Now that they have announced a new tools strategy that sounds very good as well this should become a hot area to solve for management. Luckily it isn't hard to get real products from someone like OpenLink (http://www.openliksw.com) or others that completely do away with the need for these Informix products. : Do multiple "database connections" on a single client machine create : multiple instances of the Inet DLL in memory, therefore creating : multiple actual database connections, or do they multi-task of the : same instance of the DLL, creating only multiple "virtual" database : connections but in reality a single connection at a time. Since : Windows 95 is not actually multitasking, even the multiple instances : would still be only "virtual" multiple connections." Multiple programs on an MS Windows machine simply have to create separate connections to the database however it is solved technically. If a single program uses multiple connections for all practical purposes it's the same situation. From the database engines point of view it will have to treat them as separate connections. When it comes to Informix's licensing they may not have grasped that a user is a person in most cases and if they want to get payed per user they should coun't persons, not database connections. This will become more and more of a problem as we start creating things like multitasking Java applications. Also think about a user that starts up to or three programs in the morning that connects to the database just to be ready whenever a user needs their services. If I where in a situation like this I would buy licenses based on how many actual users I had. If I found a reference in the license to "database connections" not users, I would write a letter to my local sales office explaining the situation and what I intended to do (having perhaps two or three times the database connections compared to the licenses I had) and leave it to Informix to respond. In my somewhat old license from Informix i isn't even clear what the license is valid for. A long time ago I was told Informix accepted up to five database connections per user and counted users. Some posts here in c.d.i. have indicated that the license is supposed to be per database connections. In some later versions of the engines I have heard Informix have put in hard limits to the actual number of connections you can open at a time. In that case you are stuck, and have to negotiate a price with Informix. This is possible in some cases. After all they do want to do bussiness. 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