At 10:33 AM 05-10-00 +0100, you wrote:

>I am a relative novice when it comes to database design and
>management. I work for a company of 15-20 people, which uses a
>Novell NetWare 5 network and relies heavily on our in-house
>Paradox 7 database. Over the past two years I have become
>increasingly involved in firstly, running queries and reports, and
>more recently maintaining and developing our database. We are
>considering upgrading to a client/server SQL database - something
>which has been at the back of the mind of the director, who
>developed our database from scratch, for some time, but which he
>has not been able to invest any time in, so has been put off. We
>have a 60-day trial version of Interbase 5.6 for NetWare, which I am
>trialing: Does anyone know if/when Interbase 6.0 OpenSource is
>being launched for NetWare?

No: nobody knows. There is a project under way on Firebird but so far no
indication of when a test kit will be available.

>I have read 'Upsizing Paradox Databases to Interbase' by James
>Arias-La Rheir on the Interbase website, which is reassuring that we
>are on the right track, as we are planning to continue using our
>existing Paradox forms as an interim measure.

Probably not advisable. InterBase isn't a file-server database, it's
client/server; so one doesn't design an application around TTables!

> Are then any other
>good introductions to interbase-conversion that I should read.

Database conversion - ask here. There is no published documentation. Go
to the Messages area of this list's homepage
(www.egroups.com/community/ib-conversions) and click the Files item in the
sidebar. That the archive of this list.

>
>Incidentally, I was checking out the Interbase site to find an article
>on the EMPLOYEE example database referred to in the manual, but
>failed to find this - anyone know where this is located.

It's Employee.gdb in the Samples database - I think it installs in the
Common Files area for 5.6.

>I have a few initial random queries:
>
>Which network protocol is most succesful in why situation: IPX/SPX
>or TCP/IP?

TCP/IP is faster.

>Which type of driver should I use as a BDE alias - the Borland
>native SQL Links driver or an ODBC driver (I have a choice between
>Intersolv Interbase ODBC Driver and InterBase 5.x Driver by
>Visigenic)?

For 5.6 use the native InterBase driver, not ODBC.

>I have been told that SQL databases do not cope well with tabular
>views on the user interface. I tested this by creating an Interbase
>database with a table containg three short columns and about
>40,000 rows, which comprise the main body of our people-based
>database.

40,000 rows is about 38,900 rows more than the sensible maximum number of
rows to be looking at in a client/server application. Also, you should
avoid pulling across any columns you don't need to look at.

>I then created a form which displayed this in Paradox.
>Initially, scrolling through caused an error, which I fixed by creating
>a temp directory on the SYS: volume where Interbase was installed
>on the server - persumably Interbase performs some type of file
>caching. Scrolling down then worked, but the server utilisation shot
>up to 100%. This also occured when I moved to the last record and
>when I changed my form to show just one record at a time.
>Admittedly, I am using our old server, which has a 233MHz
>processor. However, when we ran our network from it, we would
>normally regard 15% as at the high end of normal and 50% as
>virtually network-crippling. I am concerned that our GUI uses a lot
>of tabular-type views and scrolling down an indexed list of records to
>select the correct one is a fundamental design feature: what would
>happen when we have 15 users using the Interbase database, even
>on our new high-spec server. Am I missing something fundamental
>about SQL databases and the way to access information here, or is
>a hardware limitation?

Yes: you are missing the absolutely fundamental issue about client/server
application design. Client/server handles sets of data, not tables.

A 233MHz server should be OK for 15 users if there is nothing else on that
box. It won't be brilliant but it won't be too horrible, either.

> What would you regard as the minimum
>hardware spec for a server? Should I expect Interbase to run
>noticably slower than our Paradox file-based structure?

Definitely, if you go the TTable route. I would expect your entire
operation to grind to a halt before the first coffee break.

There are LOTS of variables to consider, starting with the design of the
database itself and where you do your processing. It's a huge topic and
well outside the scope of this list, which is about converting from other
databases to InterBase. Recommended place for best user support is the
interbase@... list. Go to http://www.mers.com to subscribe.

Get a good book on Client/Server programming - browse the Bookshop at
www.interbase2000.org for some tried and true titles; there are also
several good Delphi titles on client/server programming.

Use the manuals.

>I would be grateful for any responses/comments to any of these
>queries and your patience with a beginner. Please let me know if I
>am addressing these issues to the wrong newsgroup and suggest
>alternatives.

See above recommendations.

hth
Helen

All for Open and Open for All
InterBase Developer Initiative · http://www.interbase2000.org
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