Question Limitation Of V9 Vst When Calculating Buffer Hit Ratio

[Grant Holman]

Hi, Promon's buffer hit ratio field can be calculated using the _actbuffer VST table as follows:

(_buffer-logicrds - _buffer-osrds) / _buffer-logicrds * 100

The fields are integers therefore limited to approx 2,147,000,000 at which point they start counting back down. This continues up and down then back up etc until the db server is restarted.

Question - am I wrong to think that as soon as either of these fields reaches the Progress int limit and begins reversing it makes a nonsense of the calculation above. i.e. To get a true value you would have to restart server and monitor the calculation before it loops?

 

[TomBascom]

Version 9 is ancient, obsolete and unsupported. OE 10 will soon join that club. You should upgrade. 11.5 is current.

Yes, some of the v9 counters suffer from an integer overflow problem. The only reliable solution is to restart the db.

An unreliable solution is to assume that it has only overflowed once and convert it to a decimal with an appropriate adjustment.

These problems are not really fully fixed until the mid-oe10 era.

 

[Rob Fitzpatrick]

OE will soon join that club.

I assume you meant OE 10.2B

 

[TomBascom]

Fixed it.

 

[Grant Holman]

Hi Tom,

I quite agree about v9 being ancient history, however I'm just a hired hand and have to work with what I have!

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Cheers
Gramt

 

[TomBascom]

You can always work on educating The Powers That Be.

 

[Grant Holman]

You can always work on educating The Powers That Be.

Quite a tough sell when the system runs one of the largest retail operations the UK with close to 3,000 retail outlets

 

[TomBascom]

That should make it even easier.

Why on Earth would someone run that sort of risk on an ancient, obsolete and unsupported software? Are they still running Windows 95 at all of those locations? Are they still running it on equipment that was manufactured in the 90s?

They should be scared to death to be running in such an exposed manner.

 

[Rob Fitzpatrick]

Agreed. They are taking on unnecessary business risk. And the risk grows by the day.

Most of my clients are bound by requirements to run mission-critical functions only on supported platforms and applications. And even when it's not a requirement, it's just good sense.

 

[TheMadDBA]

The only way I got my previous company upgraded from 9.1E was making sure the audit department knew it was unsupported.

Things moved pretty quickly after that.

 

[Grant Holman]

That should make it even easier.

Why on Earth would someone run that sort of risk on an ancient, obsolete and unsupported software? Are they still running Windows 95 at all of those locations? Are they still running it on equipment that was manufactured in the 90s?

They should be scared to death to be running in such an exposed manner.

It runs on Windows Server 2003.

In my experience:

Companies feel they need to 'move with the times' and consequently hold off upgrading Progress on the basis that at some point in the near future they will be on a completely different platform anyway. (This misses the point that Progress is not a curated technology frozen at a point at the time the company originally purchased the licence - it evolves and moves with the best of leading edge.)

Attempts at moving onto whatever the CEO has decided is the best 'strategic fit' (i.e. whatever he used in his previous company or one of the usual big providers) invariably prove a costly disaster and the merry-go-round starts again. CEOs change and the focus shifts once more.

All the while Progress keeps on running reliably, predictably and performing consistently well.

 

[Cringer]

Until the point where it no longer functions due to a bug or a fault and you suddenly find you're on a release that is not supported and you're in a DR situation where you need to upgrade and recover in one action. Nightmare.
Upgrading to 11.x is pretty simple in reality. 99.9% of the code base should just work with a recompile. The .1% that doesn't is likely easy to fix if you even have any problems. Progress are VERY good at making versions backward compatible. Your only real challenge will be making sure you move to Type II storage areas to make full use of the features/performance enhancements in 10.x and 11.x.

 

[TomBascom]

Sure, that's how they get there. But companies that survive those experiences generally either stop the merry-go-round or accidentally hire someone with some sense at some point. It is useful to be prepared and strike while the iron is hot when that happens.

 

[Grant Holman]

Tom / Cringer

In complete agreement with you both.

There a good few pretty sizable operations still sitting on V9 and earlier in the UK.

 

[TomBascom]

It is good to be on record with anyone using such things that there is a problem and that it can be readily solved.