Perhaps.

Post #69,901 by mmoffitt 12/19/02 11:31:13 AM Reply	Perhaps. I'm trying to not gaff him. From what I've witnessed there are vastly cheaper solutions that don't require use of tools that are no longer being taught. I like boxley's idea, in fact I suggested it. I also suggested running Linux on the 400 and Sybase or Oracle. The BL is that when the conversion is finished they are still going to need tons of new PC applications to get their job done. The old Xbase stuff is still working - in fact that's what actually makes their money. I just don't see the advantage to spending a ton of money to end up nearly exactly where you started (yes I know the 400 can handle larger files, but that seems like a heck of a lot of money to spend to get that). I just don't see any clear advantage to re-writing in RPG/ILE what is already working in Clipper. Does Clipper need to be obsoleted? Yes. But it does not need to be replaced by a system that can't contribute any more than Clipper is currently contributing. And that's what they're going to end up with if they stay on this course.
Post #69,968 by imric 12/19/02 3:16:29 PM Reply	Problems are always more complex than they appear at first glance, I suppose. Just why are they moving from thier Clipper roots? Is major growth anticipated? Has Clipper been unreliable? Are they concerned about security? I am a major fan of the '400, but I am also a great proponent of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". when the conversion is finished they are still going to need tons of new PC applications to get their job done Why? And if the answer is just to interface with the data without a green-screen, then why is this different than moving from Clipper to anything else? it does not need to be replaced by a system that can't contribute any more than Clipper is currently contributing. And that's what they're going to end up with if they stay on this course. The '400 is way more than Clipper on expensive hardware (BTW, just what '400 did they get as a replacement?), as has been pointed out clearly by others in this thread. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #69,986 by mmoffitt 12/19/02 4:51:17 PM Reply	Good points all. Clipper hasn't been unreliable and there are some very good ClipperHeads here (I was a Clipperhead myself for about 8 years). The main problem is that the company has outgrown Clipper's ability to handle the amount of data Clipper can adequately handle. They have a slew of graphing applications that suck the data out of a database. All of these apps use SQL to retrieve the data. Unfortunately, none of the people hired (either directly or as consultants) to do the 400 work know anything about Sql - I'm not flaming them, just stating a fact. They've all told me that they've "never used an Sql interface to data". I'm not an anti-DB2 bigot, but DB2/400 is a completely different product from the "real" DB2 UDB (or whatever they're calling it these days, i.e. DB2/400 has just gotten a "Serial"/"Identity" data type with the new release). At any rate, the way the 400 is used at this site, Sql performance sucks rocks big time. It's an iSeries, but I don't know the exact model. I do know it only has one processor (that may be typical of 400's I dunno) but just one user running one graphical app can use up nearly all the resources on the box and bring the system to its knees. This may all be config issues, coding issues, table design issues, I dunno. But so far, the "solution" to bad performance has been to spend enough on upgrades to pay for several quad-Intel boxes. I'm not opposed to text-based UI's (particularly for large data sets), but when the SQL performance is this bad in a situation where SQL performance is tremendously important, I just don't get it. I mean, I know its more convenient to use something you're already familiar with, but man, this is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. bcnu, Mikem
Post #69,997 by imric 12/19/02 5:33:33 PM 12/19/02 6:11:48 PM Reply	Wanna be a hero? I've seen performance problems that seem similar before. Turn on the 'performance adjustment' - some admins with experience on older versions of OS/400 turn this off (it used to be really bad). To turn it on, use: wrksysval qpfradj and select '3' (automatic adjustment). If you don't want to turn on the performance adjustment, memory pools can be adjusted manually with wrksyssts - use f11 for different views. I've seen the performance adjustment (post v4 OS/400, anyway) make dramatic performance gains, though... Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win. Edited by imric Dec. 19, 2002, 05:34:20 PM EST Edited by imric Dec. 19, 2002, 06:11:48 PM EST Expand All History
Post #69,999 by inthane-chan 12/19/02 5:45:26 PM Reply	Boggle To get turn it on, use: wrksysval qpfradj and select '3' (automatic adjustment). Man, if I didn't know any better - I'd say that looks like somebody smacking the keyboard to make random values come out. Gimli's Rules for Surviving in Middle Earth #43: When attempting to destroy an artifact, remember to use somebody else's axe.
Post #70,001 by bepatient 12/19/02 5:49:53 PM Reply	Used to think the same thing... ...but its actually relatively easy to get used to. Once you know what everything is called...you can almost start to guess what the IBM folks ended up using for the command abbreviation. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #70,003 by imric 12/19/02 6:10:39 PM Reply	chuckle Command names are pieced together from 1, 2, or 3 letter 'pieces' like, wrk for work, sys for system, dsp for display, f, for files, etc. wrksysval actually means "work with system values" dspf means "display file" cpyf is "copy file", etc, etc. As bepatient says, its actually not hard to get used to. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #70,035 by slugbug 12/19/02 9:00:50 PM Reply	and... before turning on auto-tuner: wrkshrpool is everything running out of *base and is there adequate min/max for the pool? or, is the db activity running in a shared pool? you can see where it is running by doing: wrkactjob F11 look for the pool ID you might also run idoctor against the system to get a clearer understanding of where the performance troubles are coming from. also, are you using toolkit or native driver for sql access? this can impact performance too. as for processors, there are 400 models that have single processor (maybe this is a 270?) as well as models that exceed 20+ processors. -slugbug
Post #70,040 by imric 12/19/02 9:18:08 PM Reply	smile Trust you to be more thorough than I! Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #70,139 by mmoffitt 12/20/02 3:15:55 PM Reply	Thank you. I will see if they let me check any of that the next time I'm in. Appreciate your efforts and suggestions. Knowing these guys, I should have prefaced my initial post with "I understand that any host is only as good as its Admin, but, ..." ;-) This is all stuff they know to do, I suppose. But I'd bet not. BTW, a friend of mine that works there just pinged me. He ran a Crystal Report based on a single query with one join. It was some numbers grouped by week over 3 months. The report took 19 hours to run. Now, I know his Sql could be really bad, but 19 hours? <:-O

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