I am new to the InterBase/Firebird database architecture. I have a
good amount of
experience with MSSQL Server. We are planning on switching to
IB/Firebird from
MSSQL for one of our current projects to see how things go. I have
spent the last 2 weeks
or so getting acquainted with the new architecture, but I still have
a few questions that I
hope someone can help me with.

We are using Win2K Server and Win98/Win2K clients.

1) I've had some problems with case sensitivity with the DB objects.
I have also noticed
that all compares using string values are case sensitive. Should all
field names, table
names, etc… be upper case?

2) Is there any way to kill or close a connection manually? What
happens if a client locks
during a request process? Does the server (IB/Firebird) cleanup dead
or locked
connections?

3) I've seen some support in some of the dev environments that I've
demoed for Version
History. I have not been unable to find any version history support
in the documentation.
Is this a function provided by IB? Or are the dev environments
providing it? Version
History (row version) is a requirement of the project that I will be
switching over.
I have found a work around that will work, but I was just wondering
if I had missed something.

4) Is there any way to gain an exclusive record/table lock? I have a
table of job numbers
that I need to limit exclusive sequential access to.

5) Is there any way to determine (from within isql or a UDF) if there
are any open or pending
transactions?

6) And finally, is there anyway to ping a local lan computer and see
if it has IB/FB
installed?