At 7:22 PM +0000 11/13/04, dancooperstock wrote:

>1) Is Firebird similarly rock-solid enough for me to consider
>replacing ASA with it? Does it similarly need no administration at
>all once it's installed?

Been rock-solid for us. We're using it in a high-volume credit card
processing application and it just churns right along.

>
>2) Is there any reason not to just use the embedded version of
>Firebird, rather than a server version? Obviously, I'm running on
>Windows. I want to keep the install program as small and
>straightforward as possible.

There are user-security differences between embedded and server so
read-up carefully in the documentation to see if it matters to you.
Using embedded drastically reduces the installation complexity. Our
application is effectively a file-copy and we're running.

>N.B. The program is only intended to be single-user, though I guess
>in theory I could let users who wanted it to be multi-user do their
>own download of a server version of Firebird, as long as I had tested
>it and made sure that concurrency issues were handled correctly, etc.

Writing your single user application as a multi-user application does
not cost you anything (or at least not much in terms of code
complexity).

Also, the approach we've taken is to use embedded Firebird with ASTA middleware
<http://www.astatech.com>
This allows us to deploy Firebird as an embedded server and still
have multi-user capabilities.

>3) Is anyone else using the program in this way, as an embedded
>database within another application that has a large number of non-
>technical users? If so, could you comment on how it has worked out
>for you? (You can email me directly to reply if you want, at
>dcoops@....)

Can't say we have a large number of non-technical users.
Can say that it is simple to install and maintain and that our
technical users aren't really aware of its existence.

Hope this helps.
--Ray

--

Raymond Cote
Appropriate Solutions, Inc.
PO Box 458 ~ Peterborough, NH 03458-0458
Phone: 603.924.6079 ~ Fax: 603.924.8668
rgacote(at)AppropriateSolutions.com
www.AppropriateSolutions.com