Informix compared to other RDBMS
Brian Winant asked for the advantages and disadvantages of Informix versus Oracle, Sybase and DB2. One poster cited easier programming with ESQL than Oracle. Art S. Kagel jokingly claimed Informix was better on nearly every count. Doug Agnew found Informix similar to DB2, praising its multi-threading, while preferring DB2's admin SQL and mainframe recovery. No single conclusion was reached.
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What are the advantages / disadvantages of Informix compared to other database systems such as Oracle, Sybase, DB2, etc? Any help would be appreciated. bwinant@bdsinc.com
In article <374C298B.6F30540C@bdsinc.com>, Brian Winant <bwinant@bdsinc.com> wrote: > What are the advantages / disadvantages of Informix compared to other > database systems such as Oracle, Sybase, DB2, etc? > Any help would be appreciated. > > bwinant@bdsinc.com > > For one, ease of programming. ESQL is easy to implement which I can say for Oracle, it is not. --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==-- ---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
Brian Winant wrote: > > What are the advantages / disadvantages of Informix compared to other > database systems such as Oracle, Sybase, DB2, etc? > Any help would be appreciated. Informix is faster, more reliable, easier to administer, more flexible and tuneable, less complex, more advanced, more scaleable, and OK makes better coffee and any other RDBMS on the market. Gee that wasn't too one-sided was it? Seriously, there are only advantages and few if any disadvantages. Features are different and so are philosophies but bottom line Informix is just better. Art S. Kagel
Brian Winant wrote in message <374C298B.6F30540C@bdsinc.com>... >What are the advantages / disadvantages of Informix compared to other >database systems such as Oracle, Sybase, DB2, etc? >Any help would be appreciated. > >bwinant@bdsinc.com > I found Informix to be very similar to DB2, with a lot of 'terminology' changes (tablespace vs dbspace, archive vs backup, etc.), but the use of a cost-based optimizer like DB2 allowed me to bring my SQL performance knowledge across directly. I feel I could be very comfortable working in both without getting TOO confused. The Informix multi-threading concept is powerful, yet easy to understand and provides for different tuning strategies that DB2 does not provide. However, I do like DB2 for providing some very NICE administration SQL like 'REORGANIZE TABLE' and 'RECOVER TABLESPACE'. DB2 on the mainframe is still more robust than DB2 or Informix on the Unix platform and is designed for true 7*24 operations. A lot of the DB2 functions on the mainframe are moving down to the Unix. One of the nice recovery functions within DB2/mainframe is the tracking of exactly which image copy and what logs (which DB2 by default makes 2 copies of, each of which can be backed up to 2 copies) are required to recover a specific tablespace and whether those logs are on disk or aged to tape (again, the movement is automatic within DB2). In the event that a particular backup (and its copy) are not available, DB2 can automatically use the prior backup. As far as the others, I have no experience. But, from my reading, I have no desire for experience in the others. My vote would go to DB2 or Informix fairly evenly, with platform and special functions being the deciding issues.