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I N G R E S
F R E Q U E N T L Y A S K E D Q U E S T I O N S ( F A Q )
This version: 1.8 08SEP97
Last version: 1.7 21MAY95
Archived at ftp.naiua.org in /pub/ingres
Copyright (C) 1997 by Roy Hann
This document is COPYRIGHTED to control its distribution and to prevent
it from being used for profit. PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE IT WITHOUT THIS
DISCLAIMER OR THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE. Replication of this document by any
means is explicitly encouraged, provided that the content is not altered
in any way.
------------------------ D I S C L A I M E R --------------------------
BKB ENGINEERING LTD., COMMON SENSE COMPUTING INC., RAYTHEON CO., AND THE
NAIUA WILL TAKE ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTENT OF THIS FAQ.
I PREPARED IT ON MY OWN TIME, WITHOUT THE PERMISSION, ENDORSEMENT OR
KNOWLEDGE OF ANY REPRESENTATIVE OF BKB ENGINEERING. This is a
voluntary effort by many contributors, coordinated by me, who may or
may not be identified in "Contributors." Their respective employers are
in no way responsible for the content of this FAQ. Nothing in this FAQ
should be regarded as true. Any item of information may become
obsolete or out of date at any time. Information about undocumented
features should always be regarded as potentially harmful.
The coordinator, contributors, and distributors of this document make
no representations as to the correctness of the information contained
herein, and make no promises to correct any errors or ommissions. You
use this information at your own peril.
Roy Hann rhann@tnc.com
BKB Engineering Ltd., (comments on FAQ to: ingfaq@naiua.org)
11211-76th Avenue,
Edmonton, Alberta Tel: (403)497-2409
T6G 0K2 FAX: (403)436-6055
Canada
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
00. Notes
00.001 Contributors
00.002 Notations
00.003 Acronyms and Abbreviations
00.004 Changes in this Version
00.005 Useful telephone numbers and E-mail addresses
01. Ingres
01.001 What is Ingres?
01.002 Where can I get PD Ingres?
01.003 Where can I get CA-Ingres?
01.004 How much does Ingres cost?
01.005 Does Ingres support SQL?
01.006 What are the features of Ingres?
01.007 What platform should I run Ingres on?
01.008 Can I run Ingres on machine ABC?
01.009 Can I run Ingres over network ABC?
01.010 Where is the Ingres FAQ?
01.011 Where can I get the Ingres TPC benchmark results?
01.012 Is Postgres anything to do with Ingres?
01.013 Is Ingres secure?
01.014 Does Ingres run on the PC under MS-DOS or MS-Windows?
01.015 How can I subscribe/unsubscribe to INFO-Ingres?
01.016 Can I get the FAQ by E-mail?
01.017 Can I get the FAQ on discette?
01.018 Is the FAQ available on WWW?
01.019 Where can I get a comparison of RDBMS products?
01.020 Can I use a RAID with Ingres?
02. Miscellaneous date questions
02.001 Is 2000 A.D. a leap year?
02.002 Are there any Y2K (Year 2000) problems with Ingres?
03. Contributed software
03.001 ftp site for Ingres tools
03.002 ingperl, sqlperl and DBperl
03.003 tclsql
03.004 $II_SYSTEM/ingres/sig
03.005 NAIUA tool set
03.006 onyx
04. Third-Party Software
04.002 Can I use ODBC (MS-Windows Open Data Base Connectivity)?
04.003 What is Grafsman?
04.004 What is GQL?
04.005 Can I use JDBC (Java connectivity)?
05. Books
05.001 What is a good book on Ingres?
05.002 What is a good book on relational databases?
05.003 Where can I get a description of the SQL standard?
05.004 Where can I get a (BNF) definition of SQL syntax?
06. Reviews/Articles
06.001 Are there any Ingres periodicals?
06.002 What are sources of reports on Ingres?
06.003 Where can I find recent articles about Ingres?
07. Ingres/Advisor and Tech support
07.001 What is Ingres/Advisor?
07.002 How can I access Ingres/Advisor?
07.003 What is ProAlert?
07.004 How do I log trouble calls?
07.006 How do I vote on a SIR?
07.007 Tech support is useless, what do I do now?
07.008 What is CA-TCC?
07.009 How do I find out about patches?
08. General Frequently-Asked-Questions
08.001 How can I store a large object in an Ingres database?
08.002 How can I suppress execution (I only want to see the QEP)?
08.003 Other than this FAQ, what is a good source of practical info?
08.005 Why is Ingres reporting an incorrect row count?
08.006 Can I do an outer join?
08.007 How can I add/delete/alter a column in a table?
08.008 How can I grant other people access to my tables?
08.009 How can I change the ownership of a table/report/form?
08.010 What is a QEP and how do I interpret it?
08.011 How can I ask for just the first N rows?
08.012 Can I override the optimizer with my own execution plan?
08.013 How can I tell why my search is taking so long?
08.014 What are TIDs?
08.015 How can I display the proper Fkey labels using an emulator?
08.016 Does Ingres support row-level locking?
08.017 How can I invoke emacs (or any other editor) within isql?
08.018 How can I change the displayed precision in isql?
08.019 How can I change the destructive behaviour of the Return key?
08.020 Does anyone at CA read comp.databases.ingres?
08.021 Is it possible to generate FRS forms dynamically at run-time?
08.022 Why are modifications allowed to the system catalogs...?
08.023 How can I bulk authorize Ingres users?
08.024 How can I load ASCII-delimited files created by PC `X' base?
08.025 How can I import dates from PC `X' base?
08.026 How can I create export files for a PC application?
08.027 What Ingres files can I delete (to recover space)?
08.028 How can I assign sequential record numbers?
08.029 How can I do a case-insensitive string match with wild-cards?
08.030 How can I generate surrogate keys for best performance?
08.031 How do I find rows that don't match a row in another table?
08.032 Why do I have a SWAP and a NOSWAP authorization string?
08.033 How can I automatically report the location of an ESQL error?
08.034 What are some good trace points?
08.035 Does Ingres have an API I can use?
08.036 How can I find duplicate rows in a table?
08.037 How can I create a WWW interface to an Ingres database?
08.038 Is there any point in doing REPEATED INSERT?
08.039 Can you get unloaddb to go directly to tape?
09. RDBMS
09.001 What processes do what?
09.002 How are extra iislave (disc) processes started?
09.003 How do I recover an inconsistent database?
09.004 What are "compressed" table structures?
09.005 Why might I configure more than 1 DBMS server process?
09.006 How can I direct batch or reports to a particular server?
09.007 How does Ingres use sort space?
09.008 When does Ingres switch to a new journal?
09.009 Should I use mirroring on my data locations?
09.010 Can I use mirroring as a super-fast checkpoint?
09.011 Can I mirror my log file?
09.012 Can I have more than 1 DBMS page cache?
09.013 Can I have more than 1 fast commit server?
09.014 What is the Ingres Search Accelerator?
09.015 When and how do I use the Ingres Search Accelerator?
09.016 How can I find out more about the Ingres Search Accelerator?
09.017 Why am I running out of QSF memory (E_OP0886 and E_QS0001)?
09.018 How can I assign particular jobs to particular servers?
09.019 Should I set II_DMFRCP_STOP_ON_INCONS_DB?
09.020 How do I recover after a fire/flood in the machine room?
10. QUEL
10.001 What is QUEL?
10.002 How different is QUEL from SQL?
10.003 Should I learn QUEL?
10.004 Should I convert my QUEL to SQL?
10.005 Are there any utilities for converting QUEL to SQL?
11. VIFRED
12. Report Writer
12.001 How can I put ASCII TABs in a report?
12.002 How do I put escape characters in a report?
12.003 How can I number pages as "Page n of m"
12.004 How do I submit a report to run at a given time?
13. QBF
14. ABF
14.002 What causes C compilation errors while building an ABF image?
15. RBF
16. OpenROAD/Windows4GL/W4GL
16.001 Why is Windows4GL so slow to react to database events?
16.002 How can I force a window to stay visible on top?
16.003 Is anyone working on an OpenROAD/W4GL FAQ?
16.004 How easily can I use the OpenROAD-Oracle driver?
16.005 Where can I get more information about OpenROAD?
17. VISION
18. NET
18.001 What do I do if I can't connect?
18.002 How do I configure NET?
18.003 What is the 'ingvalidpw' program for?
18.004 How can I restart NET without restarting Ingres?
18.005 How can I shut down the communications servers?
18.006 Which Ingres processes do I need on a client system?
18.007 How do I configure different protocols?
18.008 What is the address and listen information in netu?
18.009 How does NET figure out its TCP port numbers?
18.010 Can I have 2 installations running NET on the same system?
18.011 How can I use different protocol...to access the same server?
18.012 Can NET use all of my LAN boards?
18.013 Can I use NET over a LAN bridge?
18.014 What about NET over WANs?
18.015 What if I change my password on my NET server username?
18.016 What do communication servers do?
18.017 Will my applications run over NET unchanged?
18.018 Will my applications perform over NET unchanged?
18.019 What's the GCA protocol?
18.020 Does NET present any special security problems?
18.021 Can I run Ingres clients without NET?
19. STAR
20. Embedded
20.001 What C compilers are supported?
20.002 Can I use C++?
21. Database Procedures
21.001 What are database procedures?
21.002 Database Procedures and QEP's
21.003 Database Procedures and Locking
21.004 Can I flush out procedures without shutting down the server?
21.005 Database Procedures and Security
21.006 Database Procedures and Cacheing
30. errlog.log
30.001 My error log is full of E_SC022F_BAD_GCA_READ. What's wrong?
30.002 How can I trim errlog.log?
90. Ingres on Unix (Solaris, AIX, OSF/1 etc.)
90.001 How can I un-nice iidbms (Ultrix)?
90.002 Can Ingres make use of PrestoServe (Ultrix)?
90.003 What do the iislave processes do?
90.004 How many iislaves do I need?
90.005 Why is a raw log file faster on UNIX?
90.006 Should I stripe my raw log file on UNIX?
90.007 How do Ingres processes communicate on UNIX?
90.008 How does Ingres maintain database integrity on UNIX?
90.009 Should I stripe my data locations on UNIX?
90.010 Where do I start looking with a Unix performance problem?
90.011 Which filesystem type should I choose? (SVR4)
90.012 Will VxFS give me better performance? (SVR4)
90.013 What kernel resources does Ingres need? (SVR4)
90.014 What process limits could affect Ingres? (SVR4)
90.015 What CPU scheduler parameters should I set up? (SVR4)
90.016 Should I run the DBMS server as a real time process? (SVR4)
90.017 Why can't Ingres allocate shared memory? (SunOS/Solaris)
91. Ingres on VMS/OpenVMS
92. Ingres on OS/2
93. Ingres on Windows NT
93.001 How can I keep Ingres running after the user ingres logs off?
93.002 Do I need NT Server (formerly NTAS)?
99. User Groups
99.001 How can I contact the NAIUA? (North America)
99.002 How can I contact the UKIUA? (United Kingdom)
99.003 How can I contact my local users group? (US)
99.004 How can I contact my local users group? (Canada)
99.005 How can I contact my users group? (South Africa)
99.006 How can I contact my users group? (Europe)
99.007 How can I contact my users group? (Irish Republic)
99.008 How can I contact my local user group? (Australia)
99.009 How can I contact my local user group? (India)
SECTION 0 -- NOTES
<> 00.001 Contributors
This FAQ is the work of numerous individuals working on it on their
own time. (At least) the following people contributed:
Steve Caswell sfc@tpghq.com
Darrin Chaney
Laurie Comeau lcomeau@unb.ca
Michael Dorfman MDORFMAN@hamp.hampshire.edu
Robert Griffith rcg@swl.msd.ray.com
Tracy Gulliver tmg@unb.ca
Roy Hann rhann@tnc.com
John Hascall john@iastate.edu
Tim Holmes timh@psammead.demon.co.uk
Jeffrey Horn horn@cs.wisc.edu
Bruce Horrocks bh@granby.demon.co.uk
Angela Lamb
Mike Leo mal@visi.com
Brig McCoy brigc@world.std.com
Carole McMillan carole@cent1.lancs.ac.uk
Bob Salnick salnick@dejavu.spk.wa.us
Please direct all corrections, suggestions and complaints to the following
email address: ingfaq@naiua.org
At this time, that will direct the messages to Bob Griffith and Roy Hann.
Roy still hopes to be involved with the FAQ, but it will be to a lesser
degree.
New contributors are always welcome. General expressions of praise
and gratitude can be directed to any and all of the above.
None of these people presently are employees of Computer Associates;
they may or may not have other official links to the company.
<> 00.002 Notations
Any non-trivial changes made since the immediately preceding version of
the FAQ are identified by a `|' at the left of the page. (If anyone
misses some issues and wants a custom marked-up version, send mail to
rhann@tnc.com indicating the version number of the last version you saw.
Version 1.0 is the first version ever.)
There are certainly numerous references to trademarked terms in this
document. Failure to acknowledge the registered owner of the trademark
should not be construed as an attempt to contest or userp the trademark.
<> 00.003 Acronyms and Abbreviations
3GL so-called 3rd generation language (eg C, Cobol, FORTRAN)
ANSI American National Standards Institute
API Application Programming Interface
BBS Bulletin Board System
CA Computer Associates International, Inc.
DBA Data Base Administrator
DBMS Data Base Management System
DML Data Manipulation Language
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions (Answered)
FRS (INGRES) Forms Run-Time System
ISO International Standards Organization
ITSEC International Technology Security Evaluation Criteria
LAN Local Area Network
NAIUA North American INGRES Users Association
NCSC National Computer Security Center
OLTP On-Line Transaction Processing
PC (IBM-style) Personal Computer
PD Public Domain
RDBMS Relational Data Base Management System
SIR System Improvement Request
TPC Transaction Processing Council (and its benchmarks -A, -B, -C)
Dramatis Personae
RTI Relational Technology Inc.
ASK The ASK Group (f. A. Sandra Kurtzig, founder)
CA Computer Associates
Internet Shorthand (by popular demand)
AFAIK ...as far as I know...
BTW ...by the way...
FWIW ...for what it's worth...
IMHO ...in my [anything but] humble opinion...
IMO ...in my opinion...
RTFM Read the manual!
TIA ...thanks in advance...
YMMV ...your mileage may vary--indicates uncertainty
:-) smiley face--indicates levity
;-) wink--indicates irony
:-( sad face--indicates regret
<> 00.004 Changes in this Version
(All minor corrections and clarifications are indicated with a vertical
bar at the left of the page. This section lists only changes which
are not signalled sufficiently clearly with the bar at the the left.)
** All references to CA-OpenIngres and CA-OpenROAD have been changed to
OpenIngres and OpenROAD respectively, consistent with current CA
practice.
01 Sections 01.019 and 01.020 have been added.
02 Sections 02.001 and 02.002 have benn added.
03 Section 03.005 has been added.
04 Section 04.005 has been added.
07 Section 07.004 has been restored, Section 07.009 has been added.
08 Sections 08.030, 08.037, 08.038 and 08.039 have been added.
09 Mike Leo has replaced section 09.010
14 Section 14.001 has been deleted.
16 Section 16.005 has been added.
91 All sections deleted.
92 All sections deleted.
99 Major revisions to virtually all sections; section 99.009 has been added
<> 00.005 Useful telephone numbers and E-mail addresses
Phone Numbers
===== =======
Computer Associates sales information . . . . . . . . . . . 1-800-CALL-CAI
CA-World '97 conference and reservation information . . . . 1-800-CA-INFO97
INGRES Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (516)342-5500
E-Mail Addresses & URLs
====== ========= = ====
mgmt@naiua.org . . . . . . . . . . . NAIUA info and membership enquiries
ftp.naiua.org (/pub/ingres) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INGRES ftp site
http://www.naiua.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NAIUA Web site
http://www.cai.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . Computer Associates Web site
http://www.caworld.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CA World '97 Web site
Also see section 99 of the FAQ for the address and telephone number of
IUA officers in various countries.
SECTION 1 -- INGRES
<> 01.001 What is INGRES? %Roy Hann
INGRES is a relational database management system.
There are two distinct strains of INGRES; there is so-called
"University" Ingres, which is in the public domain, and there is a
commercial version of INGRES developed and marketed by Computer
Associates. Most of this FAQ is devoted to the commercial version
which is called OpenIngres.
University Ingres is also known as Berkeley Ingres, Ingres89, and
"distributed" Ingres. (The latter term is unfortunate because it is
hard to know whether someone is talking about public domain
"University" Ingres, or the distributed database management
capabilities of OpenIngres. The term "distributed" should probably be
avoided.) University Ingres is the original version of Ingres
developed at UC Berekely during the 1970s to demonstrate the concept of
a relational database. It has a plausible claim to being the first
implementation of a relational database management system since it
pre-dates IBM's System R. This program eventually evolved into the
first versions of the commercial product marketed by Relational
Technology Inc. (eventually bought by The ASK Group and then by
Computer Associates). It has some of the features of the currently
available commercial version, but is architecturally different; the DML
is QUEL, and the performance and reliability are only fair to
adequate. NB: NONE of this FAQ is related to University Ingres unless
EXPLICITLY noted.
OpenIngres is a commercial product and costs money to buy. It is a
robust, state-of-the-art RDBMS with a reputation for including
first-class development tools. The database server component runs on
all the major Unix derivatives, as well as VMS, Microsoft Windows NT,
and even on Novell Netware as an NLM. The Ingres client components run
on all of these too, and also on AXP VMS, Microsoft DOS and Microsoft
Windows.
As well as a database engine, the OpenIngres product suite includes a
range of development and enquiry tools and components for implementing
distributed databases. The database engine and tools are usually
referred to collectively as "Ingres" without distinction.
--------------------
Trivium: INGRES is an acronym for INteractive Graphics REtrieval System
(revealing the nature of the project out of which the experiments with
relational databases arose). By happy accident, there was also a
French artist by the same name: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
(1780-1867). (A highly placed source who wishes to remain anonymous
confirms that the selection of the name WAS an accident.) Warning to
those with no social life: The book entitled "Ingres's Eroticized
Bodies" by Carol Ockman, ISBN: 0300059612, has nothing to do with
software.
<> 01.002 Where can I get PD Ingres?
University Ingres 8.9 is in the public domain. It is available for
anonymous ftp from many sites around the world. It is also distributed
as unsupported or contributed software by some vendors, such as
Digital Equipment Corporation.
ftp Sites:
==========
s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu pub/ingres
This site also has the `linux' port of Ingres 8.9. Many additional
sites can be located using "archie" and other mechanisms.
Contact: ingres@postgres.berkeley.edu
There are no known ports of University Ingres to Xenix, MS-DOS,
Windows NT, or any other non-Unix operating system. [If you are aware
of counter-examples please let me know at rhann@tnc.com] There have been
various bold announcements of efforts to do some of these other ports,
but so far none has come to fruit.
<> 01.003 Where can I get OpenIngres?
OpenIngres is a commercial product. For information, pricing and
authoritative availability information contact your local Computer
Associates office.
Australia: (61)(2)923-2066
Austria: (43)(1)894-1913
Belgium: (32)(2)773 28 11
Canada: (905)676-6700
Denmark: (45)(42)95 86 00
France: (33)(1)40-97-50-50
Germany: (49)(6151)949-0
Holland: (31)(3402)483 45
Ireland: (353)(1)478 0800
New Zealand: (64)(4)801-7654
UK: (44)(753)5777 33
US: 1-800-225-5224
Or call International Operations at 1-516-342-5224 for the number of
your local office.
<> 01.004 How much does INGRES cost?
University Ingres is free. OpenIngres is not.
The cost varies a lot depending on the class of machine you intend
to use, the number of users, and what components of OpenIngres you want.
It can be a little or a lot. Contact your Computer Associates office.
<> 01.005 Does OpenIngres support SQL?
OpenIngres supports SQL. OpenIngres 1.x is compliant with the ANSI/ISO
Entry-Level SQL92 (SQL2) standard and also has some of the
Intermediate-Level features. Embedded SQL and embedded Dynamic SQL are
also fully supported. (See section 05.003 below for SQL2 references.)
Note that OpenIngres also supports QUEL and embedded QUEL, which it
inherits from University Ingres. Computer Associates de-emphasizes
QUEL for obvious commercial reasons. Because QUEL has considerable
technical advantages over SQL, OpenIngres adopted SQL relatively late
(c. 1986) and perhaps for this reason there is a lingering
misapprehension that OpenIngres still does not support SQL.
University Ingres supports only QUEL and embedded QUEL. (See 03.006
for a description of `onyx' which provides an SQL to QUEL interface for
University Ingres.)
<> 01.006 What are the features of OpenIngres?
DATATYPES
=========
OpenIngres supports the following native datatypes:
i1 1-byte signed integers
i2 2-byte signed integers
i4 4-byte signed integers
f4 4-byte floating point
f8 8-byte floating point
cN N-byte fixed length PRINTING character strings (1<=N<=2000)
char(N) N-byte fixed length ASCII character strings (1<=N<=2000)
varchar(N) N-byte variable length ASCII strings (1<=N<=2000)
text(N) N-byte variable length ASCII, except NUL (1<=N<=2000)
date 12-byte date and/or time (absolute or interval)
money 8-byte money type (locally defined currency)
byte 1-byte unsigned quantity
decimal N-byte fixed decimal
long varchar N-byte variable length ASCII strings (1<=N<=2Gb)
long byte N-byte variable length binary data (1<=N<=2Gb)
Columns of the above types may be made nullable, or may be assigned a
default value. OpenOpenIngres 1.x allows user definable default values.
table_key 8-byte surrogate key (optionally system maintained)
object_key 16-byte surrogate key (optionally system maintained)
In addition, an optional OpenIngres component, the Object Management
Extension, allows the programmer to define abstract datatypes and
operators on those datatypes and the native datatypes. The new types
and operators can be used in any context without restriction.
TABLE ORGANIZATION
==================
OpenIngres allows base tables (and secondary indices) to be organized as:
ISAM
compressed ISAM
hash tables
compressed hash tables
heaps
compressed heaps
sorted heaps
compressed sorted heaps
B-trees
compressed B-trees
Tables may have up to 300 columns, and a row may be up to 2000 bytes.
Tables may have up to 8 million pages of 2kb each (16Gb). The number
of rows that will fit in 8 million pages depends on the row size.
There is no practical limit on the number of tables in a database.
There is no practical limit on the number of databases on a system.
Tables may be reorganized, relocated and re-indexed on-line.
A table may be distributed over multiple OpenIngres locations.
OpenIngres locations can be defined on an unlimited number of physical
drives.
OpenIngres uses the native file system of the platform on which it is
running. A "database" is (one or more) directories, and tables
are files within the directory.
OPERATORS
=========
OpenIngres supports all the SQL92 operators, and QUEL.
DISTRIBUTED DATABASE CAPABILITIES
=========== ======== ============
OpenIngres applications can connect over a network to remote databases
using OpenIngres/Net. That is to say that the application does not
necessarily have to be running on the same machine as the database.
An application can use OpenIngres/Net to connect to more than one remote
database simultaneously (BUT NOT INTEROPERATIVELY; ie. it can't join
together two tables, one from each database.) More importantly changes
made to the databases cannot be guaranteed to have referential
integrity. To achieve this, special coding is required, or the
application should use OpenIngres/Star.
Using OpenIngres/STAR databases can be distributed over multiple host
systems. Using OpenIngres/STAR a table in database `A' CAN be joined with
a table in database `B'.
OpenIngres also provides gateway products that allow OpenIngres to access
"foreign" databases. Gateways exist for a number of products such
as Rdb, DB2 and IMS.
OpenIngres can act as an ODBC server.
SECURITY
========
Using SQL OpenIngres provides the usual per-user security constraints.
Users can be selectively permitted to read, update, append and
delete, on a table by table basis.
Using the optional OpenIngres/Knowledge Management Extensions it
is also possible to define and manage groups of users and user roles.
Both of these make security management much simpler.
QUEL users can additionally control access by time of day, day of
the week, terminal used, and the content of the record. These
extra QUEL constraints ARE NOT IMPOSED ON SQL USERS.
For users with special security needs, there is a secure version
of OpenIngres called OpenIngres/Enhanced Security.
See section 01.013 for further information.
INTEGRITY
=========
Integrity constraints on the data are imposed at the level of the
database engine and cannot be subverted, except that integrity
constraints are not enforced during table load operations using the
`copy' command. Integrity constraints can also be imposed in form
definitions, but these are imposed only if the user happens to use
form which includes the constraints (or validations as they are
called in `vifred'.)
Declarative referential integrity constraints are supported.
Checkpoints of the database can be done on-line and can be written
to disc or tape.
<> 01.007 What platform should I run OpenIngres on?
There is no single good answer to this question, although it pops up
regularly. It depends on dozens, maybe even hundreds of factors.
The best you can probably hope for is some advice on the KIND of system
to run. You can then contemplate factors like the vendor's quality of
service, the operating costs, the kind of deal you can cut, and a host
of intangibles--like do you feel comfortable dealing with the company?
No one can help you with these.
If you are going out to buy hardware to run OpenIngres, and you don't
have an installed base or any other factors affecting your decision
other than just finding the "best" OpenIngres platform, then you should
first decide how you want to run OpenIngres.
You have three or four choices: (1) you can run the OpenIngres server
and the OpenIngres applications on a central system in the traditional
mainframe style. (2) You can run the OpenIngres server on a central
database host and have one or more OpenIngres application servers
accessing the database through OpenIngres/NET. (3) You can have the
OpenIngres server run on a database host and have the applications run
on desktop clients such as PCs or Unix workstations. (4) You can do a
mix of all of the above, with X-terminals thrown in to cloud the issue
still further.
The pros and cons of the various approaches are too numerous to go
through in detail here now (a future version of the FAQ may attempt a
discussion of this subject). For now, suffice it to say that a single
central system and a number of "dumb" character-cell terminals will
probably be the cheapest solution and will not raise any networking
issues. A client/server solution with a dedicated central database
host and intelligent desk-top clients will probably get the best
performance out of any given database host but could be expensive if
the clients aren't already in place.
Neither of these generalizations will always be true of course, but
they may serve to help the hardware selection process. If the database
server and the applications are going to run on a central system, you
may need a more powerful machine. If you just run the database server
on the central system and have smart clients, you may be able to get
away with a more modest machine. Maybe. As always, job mix, work load
peaks, access patterns and a myriad other things can influence what you
need.
Having selected your strategy, you can move on to select specific
hardware. If the decision is unconstrained by any requirement for
compatibility with existing hardware or the need to exploit existing
expertise, you could look at benchmark results. The "benchmark"
benchmark is the suite of TPC benchmarks (TPC-A, -B and -C).
Unfortunately OpenIngres is not submitted to the Transaction Processing
Council for evaluation. Furthermore, these are presently regarded with
some suspicion because -A and -B have been accused of being open to
manipulation. Indeed the same claim has been made about the whole TPC
organization. Eventually these issues will be resolved, but for now,
the benchmarks are probably still quite useful for comparing hardware
platforms running a specific DBMS product, even if they are not
reliable for comparing different DBMS products. Even if the benchmarks
were above suspicion, they should still only figure as one factor among
many.
No matter what platform you choose, you must configure it correctly to
get the best performance out ot it. A good hardware vendor will be
willing to help you with this, indeed their willingness to help could
reasonably be a selection criterion. Proper configuration can include
tuning system software parameters, installing optional software
designed to improve database performance, and choosing the right
hardware components in the first place. It is possible to misconfigure
any system. Note that workstations are generally designed and
configured to optimize number crunching and sequential access to
contiguous regions of disc--for signal and image processing
applications. A database server has very different needs.
A relational database application will be disc bound (usually), so it
pays to buy fast discs. In most relational databases you tend to get
lots of little records spread all over the disc so transfer time will
usually be irrelevant--access time (rotational latency and seek-time)
will dominate. Fast discs are currently able to achieve average seek
times of 8-9msec and average rotational latency of 4.3msec.
A fast disc is wasted without a controller that can take advantage of
its speed. Choose a fast controller too. The controller should not
only be fast with one disc, it should exhibit a linear increase in
throughput as discs are added.
No OpenIngres system should have fewer than 3 physical discs. To
achieve the maximum level of security from disaster you will want to
ensure that you can keep your database, your transaction log and your
journal files physically separate. If this is done, then even in the
event of a catastrophic failure of a disc drive you would be able to
recover the database to the state in which it was at the precise
instant of the failure. A RAID might be a very good alternative.
Some routine database operations require space equal to 3 times the
space occupied by the largest table. Plan to have sufficient free disc
space at ALL times to allow you to do a "modify" on your largest
table.
Extra RAM is never wasted.
A high-capacity tape back-up device would be convenient.
<> 01.008 Can I run OpenIngres on machine ABC?
It is believed that the entire OpenIngres product is presently available
for at least the following machines/operating systems:
Intel machines running Windows NT
Intel machines running OS/2 (strictly Net) --OpenROAD/W4GL in beta
Bull DPX/20
Convex (** see below)
DEC Alpha OSF/1
DEC VAX BSD
DEC VAX Ultrix
DEC VAX VMS
DG AViiON DG/UX
HP 9000 HP/UX
IBM HACMP/6000
IBM RS/6000 AIX
ICL DRS 6000
ICL VME
MOTOROLA 88000 System V
NCR Series 3000
NCR Series 3600 (massively parallel)
PYRAMID OSx BSD
PYRAMID SYSTEM V
SCO Open Desktop
SCO UNIX
SEQUENT DYNIX/PTX
SIEMENS MX
Sun SPARCsystems Solaris 2.x
Sun SPARCsystems SunOS 4.1.x
TANDEM Integrity Nonstop-UX
In addition, the OpenIngres clients are available for:
386/486 machines running MS-DOS
386/486 machines running MS-Windows
DEC AXP OpenVMS
There is NO server product available for MS-DOS or MS-Windows.
There is NO OpenIngres product available for Silicon Graphics, but this
is under development and should be available by late 97/early 98.
[** OpenIngres 6.3 runs on the Convex C2 and C3 under Covex OS 10.1
but the current/future status of this product is unknown to me. Check
with your local Computer Associates office.]
The NAIUA web site currently lists platforms where OpenIngres products were
recently made generally available, as well as platforms which are
currently in Beta release. This information is furnished to the NAIUA
by Computer Associates representatives. You can find this information
on the following web page:
http://www.naiua.org/faqs.html
Be sure to contact your local Computer Associates office for
authoritative information.
<> 01.009 Can I run OpenIngres over network ABC?
There are OpenIngres/NET network adaptors for at least:
TCP/IP
DECnet
SNA LU0
SNA LU62
Wollongong TCP/IP
DEC UCX TCP/IP
IBM TCP/IP
KNET TCP/IP
Be sure to contact your Computer Associates office for authoritative
information.
<> 01.010 Where is the INGRES FAQ?
The INGRES FAQ (~300kb) is archived at:
ftp.naiua.org in /pub/ingres
Updates to the FAQ seem to get posted very infrequently at the moment,
especially when I am distracted by actual work.
The following is an example of the dialogue with the FTP server; lines
that include user input are marked with a `->' symbol:
-> ftp ftp.naiua.org
Connected to ftp.naiua.org.
...
-> Name (ftp.naiua.org:): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
-> Password: juser@somewhere.org
...
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
-> ftp> cd /pub/ingres
...
250 CWD command successful.
-> ftp> get Ingres-FAQ
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for Ingres-FAQ (234847 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: Ingres-FAQ remote: Ingres-FAQ
240460 bytes received in 45 seconds (5.2 Kbytes/s)
-> ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
<> 01.011 Where can I get the OpenIngres TPC benchmark results?
Ingres is not submitted for TPC benchmarking (or at least the
results are not submitted to TPC for publication). This may soon change;
see below.
You can get the TPC bylaws and the specifications for TPC-A, TPC-B, and
TPC-C, as well as the results for systems that ARE tested from the
Transaction Processing Council web site:
http://www.tpc.org/bench.descrip.html
The Transaction Processing Council (TPC) can be contacted c/o
Shanley Public Relations
777 N. First Street, Suite 600
San Jose, CA 95112-6311
Tel (408) 295-8894
FAX (408) 295-9768
shanley@cup.portal.com
The Transaction Processing Council is a non-profit organization formed
in 1988 to develop standard benchmarks for transaction processing
systems. The council has more than 40 members consisting of RDBMS
vendors and hardware vendors.
Be aware that there is presently considerable controversy surrounding
the validity of the TPC-A and TPC-B benchmarks. Some commentators have
asserted that certain vendors were able to exploit unrealistic features
of the benchmark specifications to achieve results that are better than
they would have obtained with a less imaginative interpretation of what
was required. So far the same criticism has not been made about the
more realistic TPC-C benchmark.
The thing to keep in mind when looking at some of these results is that
a system's performance is expressed (among other ways) as a ratio of
the number of transactions per second per dollar (tps/$). This means
that if you can get tps high enough, you can spend ridiculous amounts
of money and still get a pretty good tps/$ ratio. For instance, if you
have a really fast 64-bit CPU it may be advantageous to spend an
astronomical sum to eliminate disc I/O entirely by buying enough RAM to
load the entire database into memory--say 40Gb of RAM--because the tps
will be so high that it will still yield a reasonable--even
attractive--tps/$ ratio. It remains to be shown that this gives any
insight into the performance to be expected from the same software
running on more pedestrian hardware.
While this may make the TPC-A and -B benchmarks less useful for
comparing different database products, they may still be useful for
comparing different hardware platforms for the same database product,
ie for helping with the question: what is the best hardware to run DBMS
X on?
Interestingly, CA management have twice committed to performing and
publishing TPC benchmarks for OpenIngres 2.0, once at Ingres World
'95, and again at Ingres World '96. They would probably only do this
if they seriously expect to blow someone out of the water.
As of Ingres World '97, CA management is now stating that they expect
TPC benchmarks to be published by late this year (1997). Assuming they
are as good as CA believes they will be, you should certainly hear about
it when they come out.
<> 01.012 Is postgres anything to do with INGRES?
Postgres is an experimental relational database management system
developed at UC Berkeley. It is intended to demonstrate how object
oriented data management can be accomplished without discarding the
relational model. (See Stonebraker's writings on the subject,
under the heading The Third Generation Database System Manifesto.)
The project is directed by Professor Michael Stonebraker, one of
the originators of Ingres. Postgres is a spiritual descendent of
University Ingres but is not truly related to INGRES.
Some very exciting news on the Postgres front is the release of
PostgresSQL (or Postgres95 as it was initially known). PostgresSQL has
many fascinating features, and it is the only public domain database
software with a native SQL interface. (Which is not to suggest that
having an SQL interface is in any way a good thing, but many people
have been asking for a PD RDBMS that supports SQL.) PostgresSQL runs
on AIX, Linux, and possibly NT.
It is now available for ftp as
ftp://ftp.postgreSQL.org/pub/postgresql-v6.1.1.tar.gz
For full information, see:
http://www.postgresql.org
http://s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:8000/postgres95
Potentially even more exciting is that OpenLink Software offers a native
PostgresSQL JDBC driver to allow Java applications to run against
PostgresSQL databases. See http://www.openlinksw.com for more information.
Mailing Address Purpose
======= ======= =======
pgsql-announce@postgresql.org Postgres discussion and announcements
pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org Postgres bug reports
pgsql-questions@postgresql.org Questions to the developers of Postgres
More info, including how to subscribe-unsubscribe to various Postgres
mailing lists, can be found on this web page:
http://www.postgresql.org/supp-mlists.shtml
[Thanks to Paul M. Aoki and Jolly Chen of UC Berkeley for some of this
information.]
There is a commercial version of postgres called `Illustra' (at one time
called `Montage' and also `Miro'). Illustra was recently acquired by
Informix. You can find more info at the Informix web site:
http://www.illustra.com
-------------------
Trivium: Illustra was originally called `Miro'; evidently the joke of
naming products after artists lived on briefly--Miro was a student of
Ingres'.
<> 01.013 Is INGRES secure?
OpenINGRES claims to provide C2 levels of security functionality.
The multi-level secure variant of INGRES (INGRES/Enhanced Security) has
already been certified to provide F-B1 levels of functionality at the
E3 ITSEC assurance level. OpenINGRES/Enhanced Security (the next
release) will shortly be submitted to the US NCSC for B1 evaluation.
INGRES/Enhanced Security is NOT presently certified to be NCSC B1
secure.
To find out what the NCSC security designations mean, consult the
"Orange Book":
Department of Defense Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria
DoD Directive 5200.28-STD
National Computer Security Center,
Fort Meade,
MD 20755-6000,
USA
Attn: Chief, Computer Security Standards.
Office of Standards and Products
There is also a "Red Book" covering network security.
<> 01.014 Does INGRES run on the PC under MS-DOS or MS-Windows?
The server does not run under DOS or Windows (but it DOES run under
Windows NT). The INGRES tools do run under DOS and Windows and use
INGRES/Net to access a remote database on a server.
Relational Technology did briefly market a DOS version of INGRES
Release 5 that included the "engine", ABF, QBF and Report Writer, but
that was discontinued.
<> 01.015 How can I subscribe/unsubscribe to INFO-INGRES?
INFO-INGRES is a mailing list that may be of interest to anyone without
access to a news service (for comp.databases.ingres), or to anyone
whose news service is read-only. INFO-INGRES mailings are cross
posted to comp.databases.ingres, and vice versa, so theoretically
the same articles should be available from both sources.
INFO-INGRES is now maintained using majordomo list software. To subscribe to
the list, send mail to the following address:
majordomo@ams.org
then put the following line in the message body:
subscribe info-ingres
To cancel your subscription to the list, once again email to:
majordomo@ams.org
and put the following line in the message body:
unsubscribe info-ingres
You may also subscribe to a digested version of the list, info-ingres-digest.
To send mail to the mailing list, send mail to:
INFO-INGRES@AMS.ORG
If you can't get onto or off the list using E-mail you can try calling
Tom Blythe at (401) 455-4015.
There is also a Finnish Ingres users mailing list. You can join the
list by mailing to address 'fiua-request@audit.fi' . Leave subject line
empty, and put into the message body a single line containing word
'subscribe'. In return mail, you will receive a subscription confirmation
and further information about how to post to the list. For more
information, contact
Matti Salo
Tel +358-400-901566
Haapalammentie 13 a 27
40801 VAAJAKOSKI FINLAND
mail matti.salo@audit.fi
<> 01.016 Can I get the FAQ by E-mail?
The FAQ is posted irregularly. Between postings it is
available from the archive site using ftp (see section 01.010). If
you do not have ftp access to the archive site, you can obtain the
FAQ by mail using one of the many ftpmail servers.
[The following information is provided by Bruce Horrocks and Tom Northey.]
The ftpmail servers use different software and the commands required
will differ from server to server. Try sending a message consisting of
just the word "help".
For some systems, the body of the message should be something like this:
open address [username [password]]
mode ascii
cd /pub/directory/etc
get filename
where address is an IP address, username and password are the username
and password to log into that machine as. Normally these are omitted
and they default to "anonymous" and your own mail address as the
password. Default transfer mode seems to be binary with files coming
over uuencoded, hence the switch into ascii mode.
In reply you get a confirmation of receipt mail message with an ID
number that lets you cancel your request. Assuming all goes well you
get the file requested as a mail message sometime later. Large files
are blocked up into 64k messages and need to be reassembled before
uudecoding.
Here is a list of ftpmail servers:
USA
===
ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
ftpmail@sunsite.unc.edu
bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu
Europe
======
bitftp@vm.gmd.de
ftpmail@ftp.uni-stuttgart.de
ftpmail@ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de
ftpmail@grasp.insa-lyon.fr
bitftp@plearn.edu.pl
ftpmail@ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de
ftpmail@ftp.uni-stuttgart.de
ftpmail@doc.ic.ak.uk
Australia
=========
ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au
<> 01.017 Can I get the FAQ on discette?
Yes. As of release 1.5 (13JUL94) it is available on discette at no
charge from Quest Software or Common Sense Computing. To get a copy, write
to: info@oz.quests.com or
Europe Elsewhere
====== =========
Common Sense Computing Quest Software Pty Ltd
Canada House 10 illowa St
272 Field End Rd East Malvern Vic 3145
Eastcote, Middx. HA4 9NA Australia
UK
Phone: 081 866 4400 Phone: 03 885 5829
FAX: 081 429 2848 FAX: 03 885 0116
NOTE: Common Sense Computing and Quest Software distribute the FAQ at no
charge as a service to the user community and are not in any way responsible
for the content of the FAQ. All corrections and flames should be
directed to ingfaq@naiua.org
<> 01.018 Is the FAQ available on WWW?
Yes, but not in a really convenient form.
You can try looking at
http://www.naiua.org/faqs.html
A much better implementation of the FAQ in hypertext format will
be announced soon.
<> 01.019 Where can I get a comparison of RDBMS products?
In November of 1996 Martin Rennhackkamp published a comparison of Oracle,
Informix, DB2, OpenIngres, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server in DBMS
Magazine. See:
http://www.dbms.mfi.com/9611d52.html
<> 01.020 Can I use a RAID with Ingres?
Yes. As far as Ingres is concerned it is just disk space.
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Just what it means
beyond that is up to you. There are generally held to be 6 non-trivial
variants of RAID, each with different properties. All offer some degree
fault-tolerance and redundancy, but there are performance and price
tradeoffs.
For many people RAID means RAID 5. RAID 5 has many virtues but write
performance is not one of them. Write-intensive applications would do
well to choose another configuration. Also, anecdotal evidence claims
that RAID 5 is not as reliable as theory predicts--possibly just due to
complexity.
RAID 0+1 is comparitively expensive (duplicate drives) but it offers
outstanding performance both reading and writing, and reliability is
claimed to be very good. Those who advocate using large numbers of
smaller drives instead of a few large drives, but who worry about the
the short MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) when using many drives,
should find RAID 0+1 quite attractive.
For more information on RAID consult:
http://www.compumedia.com/~kkirk/raid.html or
http://www.storage.com
SECTION 2 -- MISCELLANEOUS DATE QUESTIONS
<> 02.001 Is 2000 A.D. a leap year?
[I cannot see any way to improve on this posting taken verbatim from
comp.databases.ingres. --Roy Hann]
From agnew@gems.vcu.edu
Date: 18 Oct 96 16:11:02 -0400
From: Brainwave Surfer
Newsgroups: comp.databases.ingres
Subject: Year 2000 is a LEAP Year!!
well, guys about 2000 as the leap or non-leap year, here is the
DEFNINITIVE response.... Jim
X-News: gems comp.os.vms:29785
From: Paul S Winalski
Subject:Re: RE: YEAR 2000
Date: 24 Feb 1996 05:31:01 GMT
Message-ID:<4gm7ql$kkv@zk2nws.zko.dec.com>
OBRIEN wrote:
>
>
>On this issue, there is a wonderful SPR which I have seen copies on DECUS
>collections and Compuserve .. and possibly was posted here at some time. I
>cannot remember the references, but have kept my own local copy, gleaned from
>one of these sources, and which I always give a copy of to anyone who argues
>that 2000 is not a leap year.
You refer to the famous SPR response drafted by Stan Rabinowitz in response
to an SPR filed against VMS V3.2 claiming that the LIB$DAY RTL function was
incorrect in treating the year 2000 as a leap year. Here, published for
the first time anywhere, is the unexpurgated first draft of the SPR
response. DEC SPR Administration made him remove the bit at the end
about WWV and atomic clocks, and the reference to VMS V4.0. I had the
honor of being the technical reviewer for the answer.
It is probably the only response to a software bug report ever to mention
Sosigines, Regiomontanus, and the Council of Trent.
--PSW
=========================================================================
D I G I T A L
SPR ANSWER FORM
SPR NO. 11-60903
SYSTEM VERSION PRODUCT VERSION COMPONENT
SOFTWARE: VAX/VMS V3.2 VAX/VMS V3.2 Run-Time Library
PROBLEM:
The LIB$DAY Run-Time Library service "incorrectly" assumes the year
2000 is a leap year.
RESPONSE:
Thank you for your forward-looking SPR.
Various system services, such as SYS$ASCTIM assume that the year 2000
will be a leap year. Although one can never be sure of what will
happen at some future time, there is strong historical precedent for
presuming that the present Gregorian calendar will still be in effect
by the year 2000. Since we also hope that VMS will still be around by
then, we have chosen to adhere to these precedents.
The purpose of a calendar is to reckon time in advance, to show how
many days have to elapse until a certain event takes place in the
future, such as the harvest or the release of VMS V4. The earliest
calendars, naturally, were crude and tended to be based upon the
seasons or the lunar cycle.
The calendar of the Assyrians, for example, was based upon the phases
of the moon. They knew that a lunation (the time from one full moon
to the next) was 29 1/2 days long, so their lunar year had a duration
of 354 days. This fell short of the solar year by about 11 days.
(The exact time for the solar year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours,
48 minutes, and 46 seconds.) After 3 years, such a lunar calendar
would be off by a whole month, so the Assyrians added an extra month
from time to time to keep their calendar in synchronization with the
seasons.
The best approximation that was possible in antiquity was a 19-year
period, with 7 of these 19 years having 13 months (leap months). This
scheme was adopted as the basis for the religious calendar used by the
Jews. (The Arabs also used this calendar until Mohammed forbade
shifting from 12 months to 13 months.)
When Rome emerged as a world power, the difficulties of making a
calendar were well known, but the Romans complicated their lives
because of their superstition that even numbers were unlucky. Hence
their months were 29 or 31 days long, with the exception of February,
which had 28 days. Every second year, the Roman calendar included an
extra month called Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days to keep up with the
solar year.
Even this algorithm was very poor, so that in 45 BC, Caesar, advised
by the astronomer Sosigenes, ordered a sweeping reform. By imperial
decree, one year was made 445 days long to bring the calendar back in
step with the seasons. The new calendar, similar to the one we now
use was called the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar). Its
months were 30 or 31 days in length and every fourth year was made a
leap year (having 366 days). Caesar also decreed that the year would
start with the first of January, not the vernal equinox in late March.
Caesar's year was 11 1/2 minutes short of the calculations recommended
by Sosigenes and eventually the date of the vernal equinox began to
drift. Roger Bacon became alarmed and sent a note to Pope Clement IV,
who apparently was not impressed. Pope Sixtus IV later became
convinced that another reform was needed and called the German
astronomer, Regiomontanus, to Rome to advise him. Unfortunately,
Regiomontanus died of the plague shortly thereafter and the plans died
as well.
In 1545, the Council of Trent authorized Pope Gregory XIII to reform
the calendar once more. Most of the mathematical work was done by
Father Christopher Clavius, S.J. The immediate correction that was
adopted was that Thursday, October 4, 1582 was to be the last day of
the Julian calendar. The next day was Friday, with the date of
October 15. For long range accuracy, a formula suggested by the
Vatican librarian Aloysius Giglio was adopted. It said that every
fourth year is a leap year except for century years that are not
divisible by 400. Thus 1700, 1800 and 1900 would not be leap years,
but 2000 would be a leap year since 2000 is divisible by 400. This
rule eliminates 3 leap years every 4 centuries, making the calendar
sufficiently correct for most ordinary purposes. This calendar is
known as the Gregorian calendar and is the one that we now use today.
(It is interesting to note that in 1582, all the Protestant princes
ignored the papal decree and so many countries continued to use the
Julian calendar until either 1698 or 1752. In Russia, it needed the
revolution to introduce the Gregorian calendar in 1918.)
This explains why VMS chooses to treat the year 2000 as a leap year.
Despite the great accuracy of the Gregorian calendar, it still falls
behind very slightly every few years. If you are very concerned about
this problem, we suggest that you tune in short wave radio station
WWV, which broadcasts official time signals for use in the United
States. About once every 3 years, they declare a leap second at which
time you should be careful to adjust your system clock. If you have
trouble picking up their signals, we suggest you purchase an atomic
clock (not manufactured by Digital and not a VAX option at this time).
END OF SPR RESPONSE
<> 02.002 Are there any Y2K (Year 2000) problems with Ingres?
The OpenIngres DATE data type handles dates in the range 01-jan-1582
(the beginning of the Gregorian era) to 31-dec-2382 with a resolution
of 1 second. Dates represented using the DATE datatype will therefore
be unaffected by the turn of the century.
However there may be problems displaying dates or entering dates in
Ingres applications if the application programmer has used date
templates that omit the century (eg: d"03FEB01" or d"02/03/01").
As a temporary solution OpenIngres supports an environment variable
called II_DATE_CENTURY_BOUNDARY that controls the interpretation of
the year part by the front-end. If this environment variable is set
to 50 (say), an input value of less than 50 will be interpreted as
being in the 21st century, and a value of more than 50 will be
interpreted as being in the 20th century. For example, an input of
03 will be interpreted as 2003, and an input of 99 will be interpreted
as 1999. Note that this strictly a display issue; dates are stored
correctly in the OpenIngres database.
While not a Y2K problem, note that SELECT dbmsinfo('_bintim') returns
the number of seconds since January 1st, 1970. Many programmers
convert this to a 4 byte integer and use it as a compact time stamp.
In mid-2035 this will roll over and cease to work.
SECTION 3 -- CONTRIBUTED SOFTWARE
<> 03.001 ftp site for INGRES tools
A number of INGRES tools (including the NAIUA tools) are
available to NAIUA members from the NAIUA web site:
http://www.naiua.org
You are strongly encouraged to contribute tools. If you have useful
tools but are concerned about your employer's proprietary rights to
the tools you've developed: ask--you never know...
Contact Bob Griffith (rcg@swl.msd.ray.com; see also section 99.001) to
arrange a donation.
<> 03.002 ingperl, sqlperl and DBperl
There is a variant of Larry Wall's popular `perl' language that
provides a full-function (ie read/write) SQL interface to CA-INGRES
(and significantly NOT to University Ingres). It is referred to
by all of the above names by different people in different posts.
The INGRES-friendly variant is available from the NAIUA tools archive,
or for anonymous ftp from:
ftp.demon.co.uk (/pub/perl/db/perl4/ingperl)
As mentioned in the README file at that location, and it bears
repeating here, there is an effort underway to define a standard API
that will allow perl to access ALL the popular RDBMSs and it would be
well to keep an eye on that process so that you don't end up being
surprised that you've written a lot of non-standard code.
When a DBD::Ingres module for Perl5 arrives it will be supplied with
an Ingperl emulation layer so old code will run without changes.
The current rev with Ingres support is perl 4. perl 5 has been
waiting for the OpenIngres 1.1 API.
Once you load this software, you will probably want to buy the two
excellent O'Reilly books on perl (although the Ingres extensions
are not mentioned in them):
Learning perl ISBN 1-56592-042-2
Programming perl ISBN 0-937175-64-1
<> 03.003 tclsql
tcl is an acronym for "Tool Command Language". The version
extended to talk to INGRES is `tclsql' and it is thought to
be CA-Ingres 6.4 specific.
It is available for anonymous ftp from:
harbor.ecn.purdue.edu (/pub/tcl/extensions/tclsql-1.0.tar.Z)
There have been reports that some sites have been unable to uncompress
the files from this archive. It seems likely that the problems were
local though. [Further information on this is solicited.]
<> 03.004 $II_SYSTEM/ingres/sig
There are a number of unsupported utilities in the sig directory
that is part of the standard distribution.
Some of these tools may not be compiled and may require either or both
of ABF and ESQL/C to create an executable.
<> 03.005 NAIUA tool set
The NAUIA tools committee now makes its collection available to NAIUA
members only via the NAIUA's web site. A password is required to
access the Members-only area of the web site where the tools archive
is stored (the password is available from the NAIUA Management office,
which can be contacted by email at mgmt@naiua.org). Start at www.naiua.org
to enter the Members Only section and access the Tools Archive.
Ingres users anywhere in the world are welcome to join the NAIUA.
See section 99.001 for details or write to mgmt@naiua.org
New contributions to the NAIUA tool set are always welcome.
The archive is maintained by Bob Griffith; see section 99.001 for how
to contact Bob.
<> 03.006 onyx
Onyx is a PD 4GL/terminal monitor for linux that provides SQL access to
a variety of data repositories. University Ingres is one of the
engines supported by Onyx; SQL is translated into QUEL.
Onyx contains an SQL compiler, a distributed transaction manager and a
4GL.
ftp Sites:
==========
wowbagger.pc-labor.uni-bremen.de pub/unix/databases
incoming/databases
ftp.germany.eu.net pub/comp/i386/Linux/Local.EUnet/Applications/Database
Contact Michael Koehne at:
kraehe@bakunin.north.de
for further and better information.
NOTE: If you are interested in Onyx as a way to get a public domain SQL
database interface, you should probably also look at PostgresSQL. See
section 01.012 for more information on Postgres95 and where to get it.
Also consider SOLID. See http://www.solidtech.com for more information.
SECTION 4 -- THIRD-PARTY SOFTWARE
<> 04.002 Can I use ODBC?
ODBC is Microsoft's implementation of the Call Level Interface
specification defined by the SQL Access Group. INGRES can act as
an ODBC server.
The INGRES driver is a Level 1 ODBC driver. This provides MS-Windows
applications with transparent access to INGRES databases. The ODBC
driver and the MS Driver Manager are available at no charge for the
INGRES/Net product for MS-Windows but must be EXPLICITLY requested .
The CA-INGRES ODBC driver is NOT bundled with INGRES/NET.
Refer to Jon Machtynger's INGRES ODBC FAQ at ftp.naiua.org /pub/ingres
for full information on using ODBC with INGRES.
See also the ODBC FAQ maintained by Microsoft, which you can FTP from
ftp.microsoft.com in /bussys/sql_odbc/odbc/faq.doc
Suggested site for a compendium of information about ODBC (performance
info, ODBC Hall of Fame, links to articles, ODBC vendor info, benchmarks,
myths and facts, database conference presentations and workshops, etc.):
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Ken_North
Follow the Data Access Roadmap to the ODBC-related pages. This site also
includes JDBC and OLE DB info.
<> 04.003 What is Grafsman?
GRAFSMAN, an OpenIngres third-party application, lets developers add
graphics to their applications on any of 35 platforms, ranging from
DOS, to Windows, OS/2, UNIX, and VMS. Output can be directed to
character terminals, X, DOS E/VGA, DEC REGis, Tektronix mono/color,
Epson dot matrix, HP LaserJet, or PostScript, among many others.
GRAFSMAN can be built into OpenIngres/ABF, OpenIngres/Vision, and
OpenROAD applications. On UNIX and VMS platforms, it is also
possible to embed calls to GRAFSMAN in text files (such as reports
produced with Report Writer) which can be interpreted by a suppplied
filter before printing.
There is also a version of Grafsman for the web.
See http://www.soft-tek.com for more information.
<> 04.004 What is GQL?
GQL is a third-party graphical query language that has support for
OpenIngres (among many others). There is a read-only version called
GQL/User and a read/write version called GQL/Update.
Each site also needs at least a single copy of the GQL/Admin module
to control the client GQLs.
GQL/Design assists with database design and table definition.
GQL is capable of accessing all the popular database management systems
as well as OpenIngres, and a future version is expected to be able to
join tables from disparate systems.
The vendor has established a Gopher/FTP site for product support and
information.
The relevant info:
FTP: bbs.andyne.on.ca (IP:198.96.20.209)
Gopher: bbs.andyne.on.ca
BBS: (613)548-1032 2400bps/14.4kbps/N,8,1
WWW: http://bbs.andyne.on.ca/
<> 04.005 Can I use JDBC (Java connectivity)?
JDBC provides Java applications and applets with access to databases
in much the same way that ODBC does. For information on JDBC consult:
http://splash.javasoft.com/jdbc
At the time of writing there are three vendors of JDBC drivers for
OpenIngres.
Caribou Lake Software, Inc.
http://www.cariboulake.com
Intersolv (DataDirect Java JDBC solutions)
http://www.intersolv.com
Openlink Software
http://www.openlinksw.com
All these sites offer downloadable demo versions of the respective
vendor's products. Caribou Lake specializes in Java/OpenIngres
solutions.
SECTION 5 -- BOOKS
<> 05.001 What is a good book on INGRES?
A Guide to Ingres
= ===== == ======
Chris Date
Addison-Wesley
ISBN-0-201-06006-X
1987
This book is getting badly out of date but it does give a nice
introduction to the older INGRES tools. It concentrates on QUEL (it
treats SQL only in passing and with barely suppressed scorn). It has a
good description of QUEL aggregate functions. University Ingres users
may find this book marginally more useful than users of CA-INGRES
would, especially because of the emphasis on QUEL.
Ingres: Tools for Building an Information Architecture
======= ===== === ======== == =========== ============
Carl Malamud
Van Nostrand Reinhold
ISBN 0-442-31800-6
1988
According to Pamela Barker's review in the February 1993 NAUIA
Newsletter, since 6.4 came out this book is a little stale too.
It is recommended for readers who already have a basic knowledge
of INGRES.
INGRES SQL Developer's Guide
====== === =========== =====
Carolyn and Jack Hursch
Windcrest/TAB/MacGraw Hill
ISBN 0-8306-2564-X (harcover)
ISBN 0-8306-2528-3 (paperback)
1992
Covers the INGRES implementation of SQL and embedded SQL. Examples
of embedded SQL use C.
Programming in SQL with Oracle, INGRES, and dBASE IV
=========== == === ==== ====== ====== === ===== ==
John Carter
Blackwell Scientific Publications,
ISBN 0-632-03136-0
1992
Roger Hill says of this book:
"It has proven invaluable to me...lots of examples of code for eg. doing
outer joins etc. The tuturial stuff on setting up databases I found to
be superfluous, but the SQL stuff was pretty good. Basic and recommended
for new DBA's (like me!)."
Introduction to INGRES
============ == ======
Margaret A. Zinky, James W. Everett, Linda J. Hawbaker
PWS-Kent Pub. Co.
ISBN 0-534-92869-2
1992
This book has examples from a complete ABF application. Students like
it, and after working through the application should gain a basic
understanding of ABF. The book is good value for money.
INGRES & Relational Databases
====== = ========== =========
D. Rothwell
McGraw-Hill
ISBN 0-07-707482-3
1992
[No first-hand reviews available.]
INGRES User Guide: Visual Programming Tools
====== ==== ====== ====== =========== =====
Peter Mathews
Prentice-Hall
ISBN 0-13-463720-8
1991
[No first-hand reviews available.]
Database Tuning: A Principled Approach
======== ======= = ========== ========
Dennis E. Shasha
Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0-13-205246-6
1992
$32.00US
Discusses INGRES (amongst other products).
The INGRES papers: anatomy of a relational database system
=== ====== ====== ======= == = ========== ======== ======
Michael Stonebraker, editor.
Addison-Wesley
ISBN 0-201-07185-1
1986
A collection of scholarly papers on University Ingres, edited by
one of the chief architects, Professor Stonebraker. These papers
are literally only of academic interest (in the best sense of the
term).
<> 05.002 What is a good book on relational databases?
An Introduction to Database Systems, Vols 1 and 2
== ============ == ======== ======== ==== = === =
C. J. Date
Addison-Wesley
ISBN 0-201-14201-5
Now venerable, this still seems to be the standard work. Volume 1 is
in its 6th edition. This is a two volume set. The essential one is
Volume 1. This book covers all the major data management models, not
just the relational model. These books have very nice annotated
bibliographies. Fairly rigorous and academic.
Fundamentals of Database Systems
============ == ======== =======
R. Elmasri and S. B. Navathe
The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company
ISBN 0-8053-0145-3
This book compares favorably with the Date books above. It covers
all the major data models, not just the relational model. Extremely
rigorous and academic.
SQL and Relational Basics
=== === ========== ======
Fabian Pascal
M&T Books
501 Galveston Drive
Redwood City, CA 94063
ISBN 1-55851-063-X
$28.95
This is a superb book for the practitioner and novice alike. It
cannot be recommended too strongly. It is nominally aimed at the
PC database market, but there is little or nothing in it that is
really specific to PCs. The three striking features of this book
are: (1) it describes the database software selection process
using tests for relational fidelity; (2) it describes in terms
even your management can understand WHY relational fidelity is
important and why you can't get away with playing fast and loose
with Codd's rules forever, and (3) it describes how to live with
SQL's manifold defects, in a refreshingly candid way. Highly
recommended.
A Guide To The SQL Standard (Third Edition)
= ===== == === === ========
C. J. Date with Hugh Darwen
Addison-Wesley
ISBN 0-201-55822-X
Covers SQL2 (SQL/92) with an overview of SQL3. Good thorough book that
does exactly what its title says: interprets the (sometimes
impenetrable) language of the official standard in a straightforward
and lucid manner. Recommended if you wish to fully understand every
aspect of the SQL language.
<> 05.003 Where can I get a description of the SQL standard?
There are two practically identical version of the SQL2 standard
description: one from ANSI (ANSI X3.135-1992) and one from ISO
(ISO/IEC 9075:1992(E)). However, because the sale of standards
documents is a major revenue source for standards organizations,
neither version is available on-line nor in any other machine-readable
form.
A printed copy may be purchased from:
Customer Service
American National Standards Institute
1430 Broadway,
New York
NY 10018
Tel: (212)642-4900
The cost is about $230US each, plus shipping and handling. Outside
the US, the ISO document will be available from your own national
standards body.
The latest working draft [in, I believe, encapsulated Postscript] of
the SQL3 standard (X3H2-93-091/YOK-003) is available for anonymous ftp
from:
gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2) /pub/standards/sql
There is also WWW site with information on SQL and conformance testing:
http://speckle.ncsl.nist.gov/
The Validated Products List for SQL can be accessed as:
http://speckle.ncsl.nist.gov/~kailey/sql.htm
Finally, ANSI has granted NIST a non-transferable license to make an
HTML translation of SQL-86, the most obsolete of the SQL standards,
available for demonstration purposes. It will be reachable at
http://case50.ncsl.nist.gov/sql-86/
It is not a funded project and is not expected to be completed soon.
PS: ISO now has a home page at:
http://www.iso.ch/welcome.html
The ordering information for the ISO version should be there.
<> 05.004 Where can I get a (BNF) definition of SQL syntax?
The book "lex & yacc" in the wonderful O'Reilly and Associates
Nutshell series has an SQL grammar.
lex & yacc
O'Reilly and Associates
ISBN 1-56592-000-7
$29.95
Source code examples from the book can be anonymously ftp'd from:
ftp.uu.net (192.48.96.9) /published/oreilly/nutshell/lexyacc
SECTION 6 -- REVIEWS/ARTICLES
<> 06.001 Are there any INGRES periodicals?
Software vendors, consultants and others who publish INGRES related
newsletters which can be made available at no charge are invited to
submit information about their publication(s) for inclusion here.
Send details to ingfaq@naiua.org
NAIUA Newsletter
===== ==========
The North American INGRES Users Association publishes the NAIUA
Newsletter 3 times a year for all OpenIngres customers in North
America. You do not need to be an NAIUA member to receive this
publication unless you are outside North America.
The newsletter is largely filled with the comings-and-goings of
the executive; useful advertising (sometimes including Help-Wanted);
helpful hints, and information about imminently forthcoming new features
and products.
Articles can be submitted to:
Mike Greene
Bowater Mersey Paper Co., Ltd.
PO Box 1150
Liverpool, Nova Scotia B0T 1K0
Canada
merseyis@atcon.com
FAX 902-354-7480
NAIUA SELECT
===== ======
The North American INGRES Users Association publishes a bi-monthly
newsletter exclusively for members called NAIUA SELECT. This
newsletter includes information about the NAIUA and the OpenIngres
product set. Because it is sent only to NAIUA members it treats
sensitive issues somewhat more frankly than the newsletter above can.
It also includes late-breaking news, the latest information on upgrade
availability, and even relevant juicy rumours. Some of the information
contained in the NAIUA SELECT would not find its way onto the Internet,
so it is a valuable additional source of information about developments
that probably affect you.
Membership in the NAIUA is NOT automatic any more; to receive the NAIUA
SELECT you must join. See section 99.001 for details and instructions
for making a membership application.
comp.databases.ingres
=====================
There are two Usenet newsgroups of interest to INGRES users:
comp.databases and comp.databases.ingres
comp.databases carries postings on miscellaneous database products
that may be of interest to database programmers and DBAs in
general, though there are only infrequently postings relating
specifically to INGRES.
comp.databases.ingres is specific to INGRES, and is devoted almost
exclusively to the commercial OpenIngres variant. On the whole this
seems to be a fairly responsive group with a moderate amount of
traffic.
See also section 01.015 for the INFO-INGRES mailing list, which carries
the same material for people who do not have access to an NNTP news
server.
DBA reQuest Newsletter
=== ======= ==========
A newsletter providing updated information on Common Sense Computing's
INGRES tools, with comments on current INGRES DBA and development
issues.
This newsletter is now available to the public on the World Wide Web.
You can find it at the following URL:
http://www.comsense.com/comsense/newslet.html
If you would like to receive a free copy of the newsletter by mail,
you can request it by sending:
Your Name
Company Name & Address
Contact Phone or E-Mail (in case of problems with address)
E-mail to:
subscribe@oz.quests.com
<> 06.002 What are sources of reports on INGRES?
Independent, in-depth reports on commercial software are very
expensive. Your local CA sales office will probably be able to
provide free reprints of the relevant sections of favorable reports
such as the ones by The Aberdeen Group and ButlerBloor.
Aberdeen Group, Inc.
92 State Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02109
Tel (617) 723 7890
FAX (617) 723 7897
ButlerBloor Ltd
Challenge House
Sherwood Drive
Bletchley, Milton Keynes
MK3 6DP, England
Tel +44 (0)908 373311
FAX +44 (0)908 377470
<> 06.003 Where can I find recent articles about OpenIngres?
Please send the title, periodical name, date and page number of any
interesting OpenIngres articles appearing in the trade press (or other
publications not exclusively devoted to OpenIngres) to
ingfaq@naiua.org
for inclusion here. "Articles" which are merely Computer Associates
press releases will not be listed here. These are readily available
from CA's web site (www.cai.com).
In addition to the articles listed below, a good column to check out is
"Server Side" by Martin Rennhackkamp in DBMS Magazine. This is a monthly
column by Martin, and usually his topic-of-the-month includes
OpenIngres in the discussion.
Publication Issue Article
----------- ----- -------
Data Management Review Feb-97 Inside Ingres: Storage Options for
Peak Performance
Data Management Review Mar-97 Inside Ingres: Data Storage Options
Computer Reseller News 12-May-97 CA Launch Pushes DBMS to workgroup
Information Week 9-Jun-97 CA Expands Database Management
Computerworld 9-Jun-97 CA Adds Internet Features to OpenIngres
Infoworld 9-Jun-97 CA hopes to gain market share with an
update to OpenIngres
PC Week 7-Jul-97 OpenIngres Starts Catching Up
Computer Reseller News 7-Jul-97 CA Takes Wraps Off OpenIngres Database
Version 2.0
Data Management Review Jul/Aug 97 Inside Ingres: Data Storage Options
Computerworld Canada 1-Aug-97 Jasmine, OpenIngres play supporting
roles at CA World
Government Computer 4-Aug-97 Computer Associates Releases Version
News 2 of OpenIngres
Database Programming Sep-97 CA Takes OpenIngres to the Web
& Design
SECTION 7 -- INGRES/ADVISOR AND TECH SUPPORT
<> 07.001 What is INGRES/Advisor?
INGRES/Advisor is an on-line technical support service. It is
gradually being replaced by the web-based tool CA-TCC (see item 07.008),
available from the Computer Associates web site (www.cai.com).
CA-TCC is now the primary on-line technical support service.
INGRES/Advisor includes tools for accessing the
so-called Knowledge Base, for viewing technical notes, for
accessing the comp.databases.ingres newsgroup, and for monitoring
the progress of a technical support call. Virtually all of the above
functions are now set up in read-only mode; no updates or new items
can be created.
See the Advisor User Guide for detailed descriptions and instructions.
<> 07.002 How can I access INGRES/Advisor?
It is available to users on the Internet by
telnet advisor.cai.com
and (at no charge) through CompuServe (host name is ADVISOR).
Note that if you post to the comp.databases.ingres newsgroup using
INGRES/Advisor, your posting really will get out into the Usenet.
You must be a CA-INGRES customer with a support agreement in order
to access the system. You will be prompted for your site ID and PIN
number, and a password. Initially, until you change it, the password
will be your last name in lowercase; eg hann.
INGRES/Advisor is available to all North American INGRES customers,
but it may not be available to customers elsewhere. Contact your
local CA office or your CA-Ingres distributor if you have trouble
accessing Advisor.
<> 07.003 What is ProAlert?
ProAlert is a service of INGRES/Advisor which provides access to documents
describing SIRs and known INGRES bugs and anomalies. Where possible, the
documents describe work-arounds. [IMO some of the workarounds sound
not quite right though--use your own good judgement, or call tech
support to confirm. --Roy Hann]
A VERY valuable but underused feature of ProAlert is the ability to
locate and vote on System Improvement Requests (SIRs). This allows you
to see a logged request for an enhancement to the product and to see
how much support there is for it.
On the basis that there are some SIRs for features which repeatedly
crop up as requests on comp.databases.ingres but which have only a
handful of votes, it seems reasonable to say that we don't make as much
use of this valuable opportunity as we should.
Note: Since CA-TCC has replaced INGRES/Advisor as the current online
tech support tool, there are no new documents being added to ProAlert.
If you wish to see recent documents from the Knowledge Base, you must
use CA-TCC and select the "Search CA Knowledge Base" link.
<> 07.004 How do I log trouble calls?
OpenIngres users who have support agreements will have designated
technical support contacts who are authorized to place trouble calls.
Trouble calls can be placed by calling Technical Support at
(516)342-5500, or through the "Open A New Issue" link on CA-TCC (see
item 07.008).
At this time it is not possible to start a call via email, but Technical
Support hopes to restore this capability at some time in the future.
<> 07.006 How do I vote on a SIR?
Until a few months ago, it was possible to do this via the ProAlert
function of INGRES/Advisor. This is no longer possible.
At the moment, the best mechanism available is to contact your local
Ingres users group, or even better, your national users group.
They should have access to the current SIRs, and on occasion they
will solicit votes on the most popular/needed SIRs and forward that
vote on to Computer Associates management. A request from a users
group to implement a SIR has considerable clout, since the users
group represents many customers.
The NAIUA hopes to establish a page on their web site where SIRs can
be listed and voted on. This may be limited to NAIUA members only.
Watch the web site or comp.databases.ingres for any news on if and
when this capability is implemented.
If you have any questions concerning SIRs, you can contact the chair
of the NAIUA Product Directions Committee. See section 99.001 for details.
<> 07.007 Tech support is useless, what do I do now?
This seems to be a favorite carp, and to be sure, there have been some
problems with tech support in the past, but CA and the NAIUA are
making great strides in this area.
Here are a few tips to help get the best out of tech support (if you
haven't tried all of these then the problem is not just with tech
support...):
1. If you have a production system down (Rank 1 call), MAKE THAT
CLEAR TO THE DISPATCHER so that your call goes straight to the
level 2 support team.
2. If you think you have identified a bug, try to find the simplest
recipe that re-creates it before calling tech support.
3. If you don't think your problem is being resolved quickly enough,
or you don't think the analyst handling the call is knowledgeable
enough, or if you can't make the suggested remedies work, take the
initiative and TELL the support analyst to escalate the call.
It will be promoted to a Rank 1 call, no questions asked. This
is your most powerful option--use it.
4. If you want to escalate a call, or change support analyst for ANY
reason, feel free to call Brian Dempster, Level 1 Support Manager,
at (516) 342-2192.
5. Don't close the call till you're satisfied. Especially don't
close the call and immediately open it again as a new one; that
just skews the response time statistics and conceals the problem.
Use option 3 above.
6. If all else fails, and you are an NAIUA member, contact one of the
NAIUA Members-at-Large (see section 99.001 for details), who will
attempt to get some sort of resolution for you. Be ready to
provide your call reference number and a history of the call.
7. If you are not satisfied with the handling of your call, make
sure someone at CA knows about it. Complete your satisfaction
survey that is sent to you when you close the call, and tell them
EXACTLY what wasn't right. It is in everyone's interests to
make sure problems are identified and resolved. For the sake of
all of us, don't just go away angry.
<> 07.008 What is CA-TCC?
CA-TCC (Total Client Care) is now the on-line technical support service
for OpenIngres. It provides access to the Computer Associates
centralized client support database via the World Wide Web. This
service allows the user to: open new issues; browse existing issues to
check on current status and send in additional information; search through
CA's "Knowledge Base" for problems, solutions, issues.
In order to use CA-TCC you must use a web browser that supports the HTML
specification 2.0 or above, such as Netscape Navigator 2.0 or higher or
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher. This is necessary because
the CA-TCC web pages support several advanced functions: secure sockets
layer (SSL) for encrypting transaction traffic (you may need to make
changes to your browser's options before accessing CA-TCC for the first
time); "Cookies", or encrypted data records requred by CA-TCC; and
HTML tables.
All first-time users of CA-TCC must register. Begin by going to the
following web page - http://www.cai.com/catotalclientcare.htm .
Click on the link for CA-TCC Registration, then enter all requested
information, including your site id, pin number, and desired password.
Once you have submitted the form, your registration will be verified
and you should be notified of this by CA (by email) within 24 hours.
Issues opened via CA-TCC should get a response just as fast, if not
faster, than one opened via phone. Also, once an issue is open, use of
CA-TCC to check on progress and send messages can help alleviate the
problems of time-zone difference and phone tag that frequently occurs
when dealing with Tech Support.
While CA-TCC is working pretty well so far, it is still a young product,
and is missing features that users have grown accustomed to with
INGRES/Advisor. CA personnel have stated that they have plans to make
a number of improvements to CA-TCC. If you have suggestions, there is
a mechanism within CA-TCC for submitting these. Select the link to
Open a New Issue, then select the option for "Enhancement Request" rather
than the usual "Issue", and within the Product pull-down select "WEBTRK".
Fill in all other required fields, put your suggestion in the Issue
Activity Text area, and then click on the "Create Issue" button.
<> 07.009 How do I find out about patches?
The best and most reliable way to find out what patches apply for the
OS platform and Ingres version you are using is to talk to Tech Support,
either by phone (516-342-5500) or via CA-TCC on CA's web site. If you
need a patch sent to you, normally they can arrange to have it arrive
at your site within a day or two.
There is now another method available, via the Internet. CA has an ftp
site where you can check for (and download, if needed) patches which
may apply to your installation. This site is still a work in progress:
currently there are only a few patches available there, and only for
Windows operating systems. Hopefully more patches, and more platforms,
will be available soon.
The address of CA's ftp site is: mf.cai.com
If you are accessing this site via the web, you can go straight to the
start of the Ingres patches by entering the following URL:
ftp://mf.cai.com/CAproducts/ingres
If you are accessing this site via anonymous ftp, then move to the start
of the Ingres patches by typing "cd CAproducts/ingres" once you have
logged on.