Rich, we may be in two different industries but our challenges are
very similar.  One of our professional schools currently relies on
an HP3000 947 MPE/V with an Image database for its primary applications.
My task is to gather information, evaluate and provide advantages and
disadvantages to staying on the HP3000 or migrating to a different
platform (such as the HP9000 HP-UX with a third party relational
database - Sybase or Oracle.)
 
Our primary concern is the ability to move data from platform to
another.  We need technology that allows users to easily extract
information using desktop tools such as Microsoft Access or Excel
and create their own reports for decision support.
 
Since Image is a network database, it does not perform joins gracefully.
This is a serious drawback because almost have of the SELECTs our users
perform will involve two or more tables.  Simply trying to execute any
SQL statements against the Image/SQL database results in _sluggish_
performance.
 
My understanding is HP will provide fixes to improve their SQL
performance in the next release.  Additionally, MPE/ix will have
>
>
>Does anybody have experience with ORACLE on the 3000?
>Can anybody compare the performance/features of Oracle on 3k vs 9k?
>Does anybody have any experience converting HP COBOL to MF COBOL?
>Anybody think porting our application to Oracle is a good idea?
>   -or- is relational too different from IMAGE, such that a
>        conversion from IMAGE to relational is a waste of time
>        maybe it is better to re-write the whole application?
>
>There are companies supplying conversion services, IDSI, IISI, DB-NET,
>etc....  Does anybody have experience with one of these vendors?
>These vendors usually provide a call conversion library that converts IMAGE
>calls to ORACLE/SYBASE...   Anybody know if this performs well?
>
>If anybody would please respond with their experiences, we would be very
>grateful.... either through the listserver or e-mail to me... Thanks!
>
>Rich
>Rich Roemer                    | AIH Systems Inc.
>[log in to unmask]       | 30 W. Gude Dr.
>w phone (301) 738-7305         | Rockville MD 20832
>w fax   (301) 251-2925         |