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ChainLink Shoots for the Stars with Informix


Informix software allows ChainLink Networking Solutions to provide its clients with flexible, high-performance solutions.


At ChainLink Networking Solutions, a small consulting firm based in Reston, Virginia, Sounia Nejad Chaney and her husband, Michael Chaney, are hard at work on a new project. "We're developing a portal, similar to Yahoo, but for nonprofit organizations," explains Nejad Chaney, the company's co-founder and president. To achieve their goal, Nejad Chaney and her husband are using Informix Dynamic Server and the Excalibur Text Search DataBlade. "The client needs a system that can handle a lot of queries and perform at a very high level," says Nejad Chaney. "The sophistication and flexibility of Informix's architecture allows us to meet these requirements."

Those requirements are many: The Web site, called StargazerNET, will contain a comprehensive listing of nonprofit organizations and will feature sophisticated search mechanisms; interactive Web-based tools such as online meetings, discussion boards, and chats; and online educational resources.


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Extensible, versatile platforms

What makes Informix such an attractive development platform? Extensibility, says Michael Chaney, co-founder and technical director at ChainLink. "Informix DataBlades integrate directly with the database server to extend its capabilities," he explains. "This means that data processing and operations happen within the server. With some other relational databases, you have to pull data out into an external, third-party application, which then processes the data and sends it back to the database server. That's a much more time-consuming process than the Informix approach."

This extensibility not only offers performance benefits; it also makes programming easier. "You can reuse the code you write," says Chaney. This is a key benefit for ChainLink, which develops custom DataBlades for its clients.

"With the Informix architecture, complex data access and manipulation processes can be moved from an external application to within the database," says Chaney. "This simplifies the external client application and allows multiple programming environments such as Java and SQL to share the same data without requiring the programmer to rewrite complex routines for each environment or application instance."

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Flexible programming environments


As for Informix's development tools, Chaney gives them a thumbs up. Informix's DataBlade Developer's Kit (DBDK) comes with Informix Dynamic Server and includes support for Java, C, C++, stored procedure language (SPL), and graphical user interface (GUI)-based tools. This gives programmers the flexibility to choose the programming environment that is most suitable to a given task. "I prefer the command-line tools such as Java and C because they allow me to create more complex, sophisticated applications," Chaney says. "The GUI tools and SPL are good for simpler projects."

With such high marks, it's no surprise that Nejad Chaney and Chaney have built many-and diverse-projects on Informix. In addition to Stargazer, since founding the company in 1995, the two have developed customized Web applications, e-commerce software, geospatial systems, and other database-driven applications for such clients as InteliHealth, The Seattle Times, NASA, NBC, and Warner Bros. Online.

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Technical support for fine-tuning
Chaney says that most of the challenges he faces when building applications on Informix are related to performance tuning. "In order for a client to take advantage of all the Informix features, we have to spend some time fine-tuning the system," he says. "We work closely with Informix technical support to address these issues and to optimize our clients' configurations."

What do ChainLink's clients think about their Informix-based solutions? "They're very impressed with the performance," says Nejad Chaney. "The integration and features of the Informix platform are critical to helping us meet our customers' requirements."

Erin Tribble is a freelance business and technology writer in San Francisco.

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Inside ChainLink

Sounia Nejad Chaney, co-founder and president, oversees all technical project management at ChainLink. She also manages business development and customer support. She has a master's degree in Information Systems Technology from George Washington University.

Michael Chaney, co-founder and technical director, does the lion's share of programming for ChainLink's various projects. Along with his wife, he works closely with clients to determine their requirements. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Penn State University.

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· Informix Dynamic Server
· Media360
· Informix J/Foundation
· Informix JDBC Driver
· Informix Connect
· Informix Data Director for the Web

DataBlades:

· Excalibur Image DataBlade Module
· Excalibur Text Search DataBlade Module
· Informix Web DataBlade Module
· Verity Text Search DataBlade Module
· Informix Video Foundation DataBlade Module