I am trying to run 24/7 in a distributed environment, and the network
is not the best. I would like to be able to check availability of
the server BEFORE attempting to connect.

Previously I have used PING, but there are cases where I get a PING,
but port 3500 isn't open (some vpn issue).

I got an isc_service_attach to work, but there seem to be cases where
in the throes of getting and losing connections that the server is
somehow brought to its knees. I wouldn't doubt that trying an
isc_service_attach every 5 seconds could be a little hard on the
server.

I have tried some IBO things, but those that I have found
(VerifyConnection) are dependent on an existing connection to
function.

Any sort of neat firebird api utility for this? I am running FB1.5.

Thanks,
George Helmke