cory@upba.UUCP (02/19/88)
Well, we're UNIFY users, currently running 3.2 and considering upgrading to 4.0
in the near future. (read: "Trying to figure out how much we have to rewrite to
make 4.0 usable.") We run 1 large multi-cpu system, with lots of wyse 50's and
60's. I share almost all of George Michaelson's experiences and opinions. Now
to share some of our own problems, and some of our solutions (or lack of).
Problm: B-trees blew up regularly.
Solutn: Wrote a generic unify database consistency checker and a script for
doing automated database rebuilds (drives IDXMNT); Got the 3.2 fixes.
Problm: Database archival is a major pain.
Solutn: Wrote a script to dump the database scheme and data to a text file
which we then compress for archival.
Problm: Unify data entry screens (even custom coded ones) are kind of slow,
insufficiently user friendly, and often can't do what we want.
Solutn: Wrote our own data entry driver library, and a bunch of little custom
data entry programs to describe the screen and compile in the library.
Problm: Large, complex selections are a joke. Selections in general are slow.
Solutn: Wrote a bunch of generic unify selection file management programs.
(build a selfile, AND 2 selfiles, OR 2 selfiles, print desired field
data from selected records, do parent->child selfile conversions, do
child->parent selfile conversions, selectively substitute data values.)
Problm: Transaction logs fill up FAST. (and cause integer overflow core dumps)
Solutn: Wrote a transaction log archiver. We are currently looking for a way
to adjust whatever number limitation causes the transaction overflow.
Problm: Unify b-trees and data storage are MASSIVE disk space hogs.
Solutn: Pray for Unify to get their act together on STRING fields?
(What good is variable TEXT field if you can't really search on it?)
-Cory
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