Greetings to all on the list. First off I would like to apologise for the
fact this list
is perhaps not the forum for this but we are desperate and neither Anne
Harrison or
Paul Beach have responded to our recent email.

May I start by introducing both myself and the site I represent. My name is
Andre Mostert, I
am consulting to a health and fitness organization in South Africa (Health
and Racquet Club Group).

They are currently one of the largest chains of gymnasiums in the world.
Apart from South
Africa they have branches in Europe and Australia(+- 1 million members). The
last 3 years have seen them
undertake a major rewrite of their membership system.

The initial rewrite was targeted at the South African arm of the business
but with the eventual
intention of deploying it internationally as well. To this end and after a
lengthy investigation it was decided
to deploy a centralised system, using Delphi, Midas and Interbase. It is
vital that I stress that as a company we are wholly
committed to Interbase and Borland's development tools. I have worked with
all the big databases, some at DBA level
and I love Interbase.

The developement of our application was outsourced to a software house. At
the outset we communicated
with Interbase regarding the maximum number of connections that Interbase
would support. They led us
to believe that +- 800 connections were possible provided they were not all
busy, ie some idle
connections.

We then ordered an unlimited Interbase license as well as Solaris hardware
(as recommended by our developers)
which set us back at roughly ZAR 2,000,000.00

Earlier this year we began rolling our new membership app out after a 6
month pilot at one site.
We soon ran into problems which we at first attributed to a license issue.
Several new licenses later
we were no better off and so decided to move to NT (the license appeared to
work). We now know
that neither Interbase on NT or Solaris can handle more than 256 concurrent
connections and that the problem has
nothing to do with licenses. Interbase have acknowledged this to be true.

After a several emails we were informed that it was a problem and it would
be fixed. On the 24 May I received email
from Ann saying they were almost done and she expected a build for us to
test on the 26th May. We received a build the
following week and it was nothing short of a disaster. Now instead of
refusing connections above 256 it simply would
core dump and throw everyone off. Since then we have been unable to get any
help from Interbase. They apparently wanted to
get ver 6 out first. Now even this has been delayed.

We know that architectualy our app might not be perfect and the developers
are hard at work reworking the middleware layer
to reduce the number of connections generated.

Interbase should be able to support more than 256 connections. The most
disconcerting fact is that in the last two weeks we
have emailed Ann Harrison and copied Paul Beach twice just to ascertain what
progress has been made or when we can expect
resolution to our problem. We have not enjoyed the curteousy of a reply. We
realize that you are busy with ver 6 and probably
with preparations for the conference. We however are sitting with 18 centres
on our new app, and the balance awaiting
resolution from Interbase and our software house.

Ann we are committed to Interbase. We will help in any way we can. Vince and
I are even happy to come and work at
your offices if that's what it takes.

Interbase is a great exciting product ,if you can safely stay below the 256
limit then use it. If not then you need to
look elsewhere or wait for resolution to this problem.

If you are in South Africa and looking for a VAR then look no furter than
Synectic Software (011-7894316). Vince and Ant
have been tireless in their attempts to assist us.

Regards Andre Mostert