Re: Intersolve ODBC Q&E, MS Excel & Access front ends

I have recently completed a Sales Information system that uses Intersolve ODBC drivers to an INFORMIX database. The system based on our existing 100+ MS Windows/Novell PC network, those that access the database run DOS 6.2, ODI, FTPs 2.31 TCP/IP & INFORMIX Inet 5.01WE1. The database server is SCO 4.3.2 Compaq Proliant 2000 (a great server!!) with 12GIG Raid disk running Online 5.03UC3. We use INFORMIX viewpoint 1.01 for matrix reports and a core range of reports - Few bugs in 1.01 - It is flexible but slow even on a 100Mhz DX486 with 12Meg RAM! - The query size limit features need more work - You need to do a lot of work on indexes & summary tables to get good response times on the server ( a few of our tables do have 2-4 million rows ) We use Q+E 5.01 via ODBC for ad-hoc reports - Very few bugs - Fast & good for quick reports - Very stable if the PC is set up well - Can be a bit nasty over large databases in that it is easy to attempt to run very large queries or try to return the unique combinations of a column in a 500000 row table. - No real features to limit users in time & size against the database We run a Executive Info System (EIS) that is a Excel 5/visual basic application for management. - All Excel graphs, easy point & click questions - users ODBC 2.0 Intersolve drivers & Msquery to get the data, no problems with 1.2 & 2.0 drivers - Needs lots of ram & swap space - You need to get Excel 5.0c as early versions have some muli-connection problems - Some where in the chain there is a minor problem that causes a new data channel to be opened to the database when 1 or 2 already exist, can cause you to run out of TCP/ip resources, has something to do with timing ( I think ). This is only a problem when the user runs 3+ sessions ie one EIS and 2 x Q+Es This was our first client-server project, we now have 200+ viewpoint & 300+ Q+E reports being accessed from Token-Ring & Ethernet LANS plus 64K ISDN WAN,the project has gone very well but here a few things to watch out for: - People who turn off their PC during a report This leaves processes running on the SCO box and database, we had to write shell scripts to find and kill these ! - Get the latest versions of drivers & use a simple memory setup We use no memory manager, no EMS, perm ) - User management is poor with all the products above - Get end users into the IT dept to write the Viewpoint & Q+E reports - Users can't do much else with their PC while a report is run in Q+E or Viewpoint the multitasking features of both products ( and Windows! ) needs work We are now testing MS Access 2.0 as a front end to Online over the Intersolve drivers, seems ok so far, I would like to hear from anyone on this topic...