Conversion questions (from Powerhouse to ?????)

[Robert J.M. Edis]

G'day Glenn

I read an article a few months ago that showed the TCO on Sun servers to be
the highest of Compaq, HP, IBM and Sun (Compaq was the lowest).

I would move to the Sun boxes if the only choice was Sun or DG, use an
Oracle 8.0.5 RDBMS and keep PowerHouse for the main, heavy use parts of you
application, use Impromptu for reporting where possible and PowerHouse Web
for distributed access rather than PowerHouse PC.  You could incorporate
Java applets with PowerHouse Web in special cases.

Rather than PowerHouse PC, what about PowerHouse Client for Windows?  It's
GUI, simpler than Axiant but provides more client side functionality than
PowerHouse Web.

Regards,

Blue 

-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Waters
To: powerh-l@sphere.swau.edu
Sent: 6/21/00 9:45 AM
Subject: Conversion questions (from Powerhouse to ?????)

Having read the threads through the list-serv I came across a number of
conversion questions, the majority were answered with (and I paraphrase
a bit) "don't do it", "it's more trouble then it was worth","plan for it
taking a lot longer" and many other variations on these. Pretty much
across the board negative! Well we are in the un-enviable position of
maybe having to convert systems, perhaps away from Powerhouse totally.
Explanation follows...

We are running 7.33 Powerhouse on a DG Unix platform using Interbase.
The system that has been built up through the years is a heavily
customized, very specialized system, that runs this place pretty well.
We received notice from Cognos that Interbase support is being dropped
at the end of the year (because its going open source!?!), so naturally
the alarm bells have gone off and we are starting to see what we might
be able to do. Well if it were only that simple we might be ok, but
there is more. They developed and have considerable interfaces built
using Powerhouse PC! Which for any of you not aware is also sort of on
the "fringe" of support (and still uses 16 bit drivers...). In addition
to all of this, this is an educational institution and funding is always
an issue.

So we are exploring alternatives right now. I'll list them below, and
I'd be very interested in any input from you folks on our ideas, and any
other ideas you may have.
1. Set up Oracle on the DG box. This solves the Interbase problem, and
should involve only a minimal amount of pain. Keep running our current
applications, converted as needed for Oracle.It doesn't solve our
Powerhouse PC problem, but will buy us some time.
2. Oracle on a Sun box. Similar to the idea above. Again still running
our Powerhouse applications.The main push for this idea is the
university has standardized on Sun (we could get them "cheaper"), and
would solve some non powerhouse related issues.
3. Convert our applications to Java. A total conversion off Powerhouse.
Probably to Oracle DB, on a Sun box. Yes I understand how tough it would
be :-) Advantages of Java (in a University setting) is that any
workstation we have could (in theory) run the programs. Currently only
Windows boxes have access to the applications because of the Powerhouse
PC front end. This would solve the DB issue, and the Powerhouse PC
issue, but the "cost" would be the highest.
4. Finally some "creative" ideas were brought up, like putting a Java
"wrapper" around the current applications, that sort of thing.

We've started looking at what Cognos has to offer and the costs (Axient
etc..) are a bit high. Powerhouse "web" is currently questionable etc..
And we would still have a conversion effort if we went to one of their
other platforms. Any suggestions you might have to offer, ideas, shared
pain are welcome.

Thanks!

Glenn Waters
North Carolina State University 
College of Veterinary Medicine 
4700 Hillsborough St., Box 8401 
Raleigh, NC 27695-8401 
Phone: (919) 513-6652
Fax: (919) 513-6452 
Email: Glenn_Waters@ncsu.edu


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