ODBC: Openlink, Intersolv or Informix?
Tony Marasco
5.x (to be upgraded to 7.x soon.) Currently I have a single-
user license of Intersolv and other license from Crystal
Info Server. We want the ODBC connectivity for new graphical
applications (VB, Delphi, & Powerbuilder) and MS Office.
I am under the impression that PB has its own drivers.
My biggest dilemma is which product to buy. I like Intersolv's
drivers as I have had no problems with it. I was told the
Informix drivers are Intersolv's drivers. Openlink is
getting attention because they claim it works on a Mac. It
would be nice to find drivers that are cross-platform
(PC and Mac).
Does anyone have comments/suggestions on which path I should
suggest? The boss (who has and loves his MAC) wants Openlink
because of the Mac access. From what I saw we must run their
server software, unless I misunderstood their docs.
TIA! Any help is greatly appreciated!
Fuzzy
I've found over the years that even though Intersolv sells its drivers
to the DB companies, which just re-badge them and package them with
their product, the two sometimes act in subtely different ways. This
can be really annoying.
I've also just learned (though I'll admit this hasn't been
substantiated) that Intersolv's drivers don't support threads - so any
plans to use MTS or CORBA could be affected.
Don't know much about Openlink, so I can't comment
Ciao
Fuzzy
:-)
Allan Gould
>
> We are currently looking at buying an ODBC pack for Online
> 5.x (to be upgraded to 7.x soon.) Currently I have a single-
> user license of Intersolv and other license from Crystal
> Info Server. We want the ODBC connectivity for new graphical
> applications (VB, Delphi, & Powerbuilder) and MS Office.
> I am under the impression that PB has its own drivers.
>
> My biggest dilemma is which product to buy. I like Intersolv's
> drivers as I have had no problems with it. I was told the
> Informix drivers are Intersolv's drivers. Openlink is
> getting attention because they claim it works on a Mac. It
> would be nice to find drivers that are cross-platform
> (PC and Mac).
>
> Does anyone have comments/suggestions on which path I should
> suggest? The boss (who has and loves his MAC) wants Openlink
> because of the Mac access. From what I saw we must run their
> server software, unless I misunderstood their docs.
>
> TIA! Any help is greatly appreciated!
You could try our ODBC driver: SCO SQL-Retriever; it will cope quite
happily with Informix 4-7 (SE/OnLine) on many UNIX platforms.
Unfortunately, we don't do a port for the Mac. Take a look at
http://www.sco.com/vision/products/sqlretriever/ for more information
and a downloadable eval.
Allan Gould
(allang at sco dot com)
(Please remove anti-spam measures if replying)
Tim Haynes
In article <366daee3...@newshost.interact.net.au>,
gra...@nospam.student.canberra.edu.au (Fuzzy) wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Dec 1998 15:51:12 -0500, Tony Marasco
> <ton...@berksiu.k12.pa.us> wrote:
>
> >We are currently looking at buying an ODBC pack for Online
> >5.x (to be upgraded to 7.x soon.) Currently I have a single-
> >user license of Intersolv and other license from Crystal
> >Info Server. We want the ODBC connectivity for new graphical
> >applications (VB, Delphi, & Powerbuilder) and MS Office.
> >I am under the impression that PB has its own drivers.
> >
> >My biggest dilemma is which product to buy. I like Intersolv's
> >drivers as I have had no problems with it. I was told the
> >Informix drivers are Intersolv's drivers. Openlink is
> >getting attention because they claim it works on a Mac. It
> >would be nice to find drivers that are cross-platform
> >(PC and Mac).
> >
> >Does anyone have comments/suggestions on which path I should
> >suggest? The boss (who has and loves his MAC) wants Openlink
> >because of the Mac access. From what I saw we must run their
> >server software, unless I misunderstood their docs.
> >
> >TIA! Any help is greatly appreciated!
>
> I've found over the years that even though Intersolv sells its drivers
> to the DB companies, which just re-badge them and package them with
> their product, the two sometimes act in subtely different ways. This
> can be really annoying.
>
> I've also just learned (though I'll admit this hasn't been
> substantiated) that Intersolv's drivers don't support threads - so any
> plans to use MTS or CORBA could be affected.
>
> Don't know much about Openlink, so I can't comment
>
OpenLink provide high-performance ODBC, JDBC and UDBC data access drivers,
independent of platform / OS and database. This includes Mac as a client.
They're available for free non-expiry evaluation download from
<http://www.openlinksw.com/> onwards.
HTH!
~Tim
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
John Clynes
Informix's current 32 (2.80) bit driver is a pure INFORMIX driver. i.e. they
designed it themselves and it does not work with Informix V5. Its a pile of
shit to be honest.
Intersolv's driver 3.11 is bang down the line reliable as always. Also,
Intersolv tech support can resolve any problems you might have very quickly.
I have not found this to be the case with Informix.
Openlink's driver promise a lot but I couldn't get it to work (the lite
client side version).
We may look again at openlink in the future as there are some very nice
features promised.
So basically, choose anything, just not the Informix driver. (The Intersolv
3.10 driver that comes with the CLI SDK download pack has a couple of known
bugs so pay the extra few pounds and the the 3.11)
If I sound vehement, its because I wasted a LOT of time with this crap
(we're on Informix 5.10)
Hope this helps
john
Tony Marasco wrote in message <366D9140...@berksiu.k12.pa.us>...
Jun Nolasco
>
> Tony,
> Informix's current 32 (2.80) bit driver is a pure INFORMIX driver. i.e. they
> designed it themselves and it does not work with Informix V5. Its a pile of
> shit to be honest.
I concur with this one. This version seems to have problems handling
dates. For some strange reason, this driver insists on reversing the day
and month values. The older 2.5x driver also seems to have this problem
but can be fixed by setting GL_DATE(?). Doing the same for 2.80 has no
effect.
> Intersolv's driver 3.11 is bang down the line reliable as always. Also,
> Intersolv tech support can resolve any problems you might have very quickly.
> I have not found this to be the case with Informix.
>
> Openlink's driver promise a lot but I couldn't get it to work (the lite
> client side version).
> We may look again at openlink in the future as there are some very nice
> features promised.
>
> So basically, choose anything, just not the Informix driver. (The Intersolv
> 3.10 driver that comes with the CLI SDK download pack has a couple of known
> bugs so pay the extra few pounds and the the 3.11)
What bugs does 3.10 have?
> If I sound vehement, its because I wasted a LOT of time with this crap
> (we're on Informix 5.10)
I don't blame you.
As an aside, we already ditched that pesky New Era (at my instigation).
Now if I can only convince the group to bring in other databases into
the picture, as a prelude to ditching everything Informix that we have.
The last attempt was almost successful, until that Dynamic-4GL thing
reared its head. We could have replaced all of our 4GL code in one
stroke; but now I guess those chunks of 4GL code will have to live a bit
longer.
Jun Nolasco
John Clynes
> What bugs does 3.10 have?
Like the 2.5 driver it can't do indexed reads. In VB for example this means
you cannot use the update method of a recordset. You can still update via
passthroughs, and this is normally preferable anyway, but it still does have
the limitation. To my knowledge.
> As an aside, we already ditched that pesky New Era (at my instigation).
I stay up late at nights and pray for the demise of New Era. (We've got
2.12, yum).
Luckily because we've just added SQL Server to the list of databases we
write (duplicate) data too we may just be able to do this (get rid of it) as
neither are flexible enough to control an environment satisfactorily.
Should my manager grant my wishes for christmas, what route would you
recommend to upgrading new era?
My plan was to just rewrite most stuff in VB and something a little more
powerful for any batch type processing.
What might be nice would be an interim solution to distance ourselves from
New Era
What's the deal with this dyamic4gl?
It may (or may not) be of use to know that our apps write to Informix
(ODBC,Native), Fox and SQL Server (quad phase commit fucking hell)
My tuppence
J
William Harris
says...
>Should my manager grant my wishes for christmas, what route would you
>recommend to upgrading new era?
>My plan was to just rewrite most stuff in VB and something a little more
>powerful for any batch type processing.
Don't stab yourself in the back like that! We've been (trying) to use VB for
a while now and it is a monster for database access; with each version,
Microsoft tries to get database access right and in each version they more or
less fail. DAO to RDO to ADO to ???
Almost anything on the shelf (Delphi, Powerbuilder, you fill in the blank)
would be preferable.
--
William Harris (nursing the many burns VB has inflicted on me)
Fred Bouquet
wrote:
> We are currently looking at buying an ODBC pack for Online
> 5.x (to be upgraded to 7.x soon.) Currently I have a single-
> user license of Intersolv and other license from Crystal
> Info Server. We want the ODBC connectivity for new graphical
> applications (VB, Delphi, & Powerbuilder) and MS Office.
> I am under the impression that PB has its own drivers.
>
> My biggest dilemma is which product to buy. I like Intersolv's
> drivers as I have had no problems with it. I was told the
> Informix drivers are Intersolv's drivers. Openlink is
> getting attention because they claim it works on a Mac. It
> would be nice to find drivers that are cross-platform
> (PC and Mac).
>
> Does anyone have comments/suggestions on which path I should
> suggest? The boss (who has and loves his MAC) wants Openlink
> because of the Mac access. From what I saw we must run their
> server software, unless I misunderstood their docs.
>
> TIA! Any help is greatly appreciated!
Just a word, One of the biggest french company was using OpenLink ODBC
drivers up to now. They tried our middleware and they noticed it is faster
than the fastest ODBC driver they ever tried. They use Delphi on their PC
and a remote SQL database.
Our tool offer much more functionnalities than a simple pipe between you
client application and you remote SQL database.
Our tool are available on Mac and windows for 7 years ! We offer ODBC
interface but not only !
Our tool is made of 2 parts : The firt part is a driver that must be
installed on the your Mac or PC. You purchase this module ONLY one time,
and then you can distribute it widely without fee. The second part is the
server part must be installed on your server (Unix or NT). This server
module is a DEVELOPPEMENT TOOL !
it encloses a programming language, stored procedure, batches (this is the
only one middleware to do that), html pages generator, email sender and
reader, ...
if I continue you will not believe me (but all is true)
For instance you can run a procedure on the server and then you can quit
your delphi application or Excel, or .... And when the procedure is
finished on the server, the server call you back and ask you for instance
to launch you spreadsheet, or another application.
Another exemple : a large european radio station broadcast news on mobile
phone of a well known european baby bell using our tool !
That's all for the time being, if you want more details about our
middleware, just let me know.
Always remember, that the most popular product is not often the most
efficient product !
--
Fred Bouquet (f...@cornut.fr)
X-No-Archive: Yes
jose...@my-dejanews.com
imho.) their sequelink provides connectivity to informix from both mac &
windows clients. you can download a 30 day eval at
http://www.microfocus.com/products/data.htm
In article <366D9140...@berksiu.k12.pa.us>,
ton...@berksiu.k12.pa.us wrote:
> We are currently looking at buying an ODBC pack for Online
> 5.x (to be upgraded to 7.x soon.) Currently I have a single-
> user license of Intersolv and other license from Crystal
> Info Server. We want the ODBC connectivity for new graphical
> applications (VB, Delphi, & Powerbuilder) and MS Office.
> I am under the impression that PB has its own drivers.
>
> My biggest dilemma is which product to buy. I like Intersolv's
> drivers as I have had no problems with it. I was told the
> Informix drivers are Intersolv's drivers. Openlink is
> getting attention because they claim it works on a Mac. It
> would be nice to find drivers that are cross-platform
> (PC and Mac).
>
> Does anyone have comments/suggestions on which path I should
> suggest? The boss (who has and loves his MAC) wants Openlink
> because of the Mac access. From what I saw we must run their
> server software, unless I misunderstood their docs.
>
> TIA! Any help is greatly appreciated!
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Nuno C. Godinho
Intersolv drivers. I don´t know if they have a Mac version.
Best luck
Nuno
Kingsley Idehen
OpenLink provide the best drivers for Informix (and other DB Engines for
that matter), bold statement yes and I can prove it if need be.
At the current time you need to connect MacOS client to Informix Databases
within your organization, we have a solution. in our Data Access Driver
Suite (Multi-Tier Edition).
You will have to install our Broker on one of your Server machines, this is
because there isn't an I-Connect product for MacOS from Informix.
You can always obtain a free non expiring evaluation copy from:
http://www.openlinksw.com
Regards,
Kingsley Idehen
OpenLink software
Fred Bouquet wrote in message ...
>In article <366D9140...@berksiu.k12.pa.us>, ton...@berksiu.k12.pa.us
>wrote:
>
>> We are currently looking at buying an ODBC pack for Online
>> 5.x (to be upgraded to 7.x soon.) Currently I have a single-
>> user license of Intersolv and other license from Crystal
>> Info Server. We want the ODBC connectivity for new graphical
>> applications (VB, Delphi, & Powerbuilder) and MS Office.
>> I am under the impression that PB has its own drivers.
>>
>> My biggest dilemma is which product to buy. I like Intersolv's
>> drivers as I have had no problems with it. I was told the
>> Informix drivers are Intersolv's drivers. Openlink is
>> getting attention because they claim it works on a Mac. It
>> would be nice to find drivers that are cross-platform
>> (PC and Mac).
>>
>> Does anyone have comments/suggestions on which path I should
>> suggest? The boss (who has and loves his MAC) wants Openlink
>> because of the Mac access. From what I saw we must run their
>> server software, unless I misunderstood their docs.
>>
>> TIA! Any help is greatly appreciated!
>
>
Kingsley Idehen
The issue re. Visual Basic is a long story, but once you understand what is
happening under the covers it becomes clearer as to the source of the
problem.
1993-95 - Visual Basic was driven via DAO, this in turn used JET Engine to
connect to ODBC Drivers. The JET Engine was generally perceived to be a
source of ODBC performance bottlenecks as most ODBC end-users (and
developers for that matter) didn't quite understand the manner in which JET
utilized the ODBC API. The problem was that JET included a Scrollable Cursor
emulation layer that was built atop ODBC (for good reason) but most people
didn't understand its use at the time.
1995-97 - Bad press for DAO forces Microsoft to remove the inherent
dependency on JET within DAO by providing ODBCDriect, unfortunately this
didn't catch on that much either. Developers lost the Scrollability provided
by JET and bulked at the new amount of worked they had to take on in this
area, in short they now had to write what JET provided gratis. Microsoft
then introduces RDO, which provided the ability to use Scrollable Cursor
emulations via a Cursor Library aka. client-side cursors (this library was
always available outside the VB space but put to use primarily by driver
vendors). Server side cursors left Scrollability to the Driver Developers
(only Microsoft & OpenLink supported the Scrollable cursor requirements of
RDO).
1997-Present Date - Microsoft is strategically pushing OLE-DB and seeks to
have ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) as the new Data Access abstraction layer
into both Native OLE-DB Data Providers and ODBC Drivers. Like RDO this has
both client-side & server-side scrollable cursor requirements, and simply
presents the same challenges to ODBC Driver Developers & Vendors.
The moral of this story is simply this:
Knowledge is power !
If there was a better understanding of the real data access issues, then the
dependency on vendor propaganda and the need to draw inferences from the
sinful silence of technology vendors would simply have less of a bearing on
product purchasing decisions and the ultimate success of organizations
investing in data access technology & development tools world-wide.
Its all about Scrollable cursors and the inability of most ODBC Driver
Vendors to support this functionality.
OpenLink as an ODBC Driver vendor strategically decided to bite the bullet a
few years back, we built a Scrollable Cursor Engine that works across all of
our supported backend databases. Microsoft have done the same but for SQL
Server only, the Microsoft Cursor Library on supports 2 of the 5 cursor
models:
1. Forward Only
2. Static
3. Keyset
4. Mixed
5. Dynamic
If you need Drivers that will enable you to use VB or other Cursor centric
ODBC clients against your existing databases then simply visit our Web Site:
to download a free non expiring evaluation copy:
Regards,
Kingsley Idehen
President & CEO
OpenLink Software
William Harris wrote in message <74out2$ouf$2...@malgudi.oar.net>...
William Harris
says...
>The issue re. Visual Basic is a long story, but once you understand what is
>happening under the covers it becomes clearer as to the source of the
>problem.
I think you overstate the case for Microsoft's understanding about database
connectivity; even at the early stages of your timeline (1993), there were
versions of products such as Powerbuilder and SQLWindows that didn't have as
much baggage as Visual Basic.
But, as you allude to, some of the problem with Visual Basic is that it
fosters the illusion of being able to do a lot without knowing much of the
nuts and bolts, which is wrong.
Visual Basic is, perhaps, the best example of a visual development environment
in which too much is expected out of its RAD features.
In terms of the post to which I was originally responding, I would still not
recommend that someone upgrade from New Era to Visual Basic unless they
absolutely understand that it is not as simple as putting together a few RAD
screens and assigning some SQL to some controls on those screens.
--
William Harris