Re: Hands-free Administration
"Chris Youll" <nospam_cyoull@comcast.net> wrote in message news:C62dnV3Z9MkWJjnanZ2dnUVZ_g2dnZ2d@comcast.com... >I have been trying to follow the resurgence of Informix IDS and the new >cheetah product line. In the "Chat with the Labs" presentations and the >IBM Web site a great deal is referenced about the ease of management. I >believe, I read or heard something about installing IDS and never have to >worry about it, it just runs. I don't think any database company would >come out and say their product requires more DBA's than anyone else. So, >is it the complexity of the environment that the RDBMS is in or is it the >RDBMS product that actually makes the product hands-free administration? > > Any specifics on what makes IDS hands-free would be useful. Hmm. The name magic ingredient that makes DB2 "fully autonomic" I guess. It's called "Marketing". That said, I find IDS can be pretty low-maintenance. One of the Board of Directors' personal profiles mentioned visiting sites where Informix has been chugging away in a corner for years, and in this respect - the ability to set a system up once and for it to perform adequately with little or no tuning and maintenance - Informix is very strong indeed. Whether it's desirable to neglect for any period of time a database, Informix or otherwise, upon which you reply for high availability and high performance is a highly debatable point IMHO.
Neil Truby wrote: > "Chris Youll" <nospam_cyoull@comcast.net> wrote in message > news:C62dnV3Z9MkWJjnanZ2dnUVZ_g2dnZ2d@comcast.com... >> I have been trying to follow the resurgence of Informix IDS and the new >> cheetah product line. In the "Chat with the Labs" presentations and the >> IBM Web site a great deal is referenced about the ease of management. I >> believe, I read or heard something about installing IDS and never have to >> worry about it, it just runs. I don't think any database company would >> come out and say their product requires more DBA's than anyone else. So, >> is it the complexity of the environment that the RDBMS is in or is it the >> RDBMS product that actually makes the product hands-free administration? >> >> Any specifics on what makes IDS hands-free would be useful. > > Hmm. > The name magic ingredient that makes DB2 "fully autonomic" I guess. It's > called "Marketing". > > That said, I find IDS can be pretty low-maintenance. One of the Board of > Directors' personal profiles mentioned visiting sites where Informix has > been chugging away in a corner for years, and in this respect - the ability > to set a system up once and for it to perform adequately with little or no > tuning and maintenance - Informix is very strong indeed. Whether it's > desirable to neglect for any period of time a database, Informix or > otherwise, upon which you reply for high availability and high performance > is a highly debatable point IMHO. > > Besides all that was already said, this hands-free idea is also a strategic direction. Many things that appeared in later version did take this into consideration (high availability, footprint customization, automatic statistics gathering, RTO, checkpoint auto-tunning, auto IO configuration) and several ones that will probably show up in future versions are customer driven needs in this area. For better understanding why it run so good without too much maintenance you'll have to check some features that belong to the product since long ago... Small footprint, multi-threaded architecture, very stable and reliable optimizer, auto extent merging, auto index cleaning, online backups without external tools, memory expansion capability etc. This capabilities and also the dedication of the support team were probably some of the reasons why Cisco ( http://www.db2mag.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201200302 )decided to use it inside some of their routers... They're surely not a DBA's playground... They're intended to "just run", although this is obviously a very controlled environment. But in fact many third party application developers enjoy these features and take advantage of them to provide nearly hands-free database environments on which to build their solutions. In fact, they're also the ones who request some of these new features, since they want even more improvements into it, to simplify their task. Many times the customers don't have DBA's, so they have to do that as well as take care of their applications. Regards, -- Fernando Nunes Portugal http://informix-technology.blogspot.com My email works... but I don't check it frequently...
There are lots of ways to look at the cost of administration and how various products will respond. Here's where Informix products excel: set it and forget it - lots of responses to this. Just to reiterate, its not about the admin here, but about the reliability of the product... it just doesn't go down. easy to admin - As Art mentioned, a lot of things are just easier to do. adaptability - IDS runs on everything from tiny 10's of Mbs to 100Gb of memory and lots of cpus... Gb to Tb of data. While a big system is more complex, the knowledge required to admin the big systems doesn't scale like IDS does. Mere mortals can configure and tune big, complex systems. Also, IDS is able to adapt to more variance in system changes with little or no intervention than other database engines. Information - IDS provides a plethora of information into what's going on and you can get to it via sql or command line utilities. And it can be administered from anywhere that has an internet connection. Mr. DBA can be sitting on the beach in Cancun and administering an IDS instance via his iPhone. Pretty sweet! For those who wonder about Informix... its got a loyal, passionate fan base that's willing to promote the product because they've found it to be the best product in its space. Be very careful who you ask about Informix IDS, its kind of like the difference between a salaried salesman and a salesman who works on commission... salaried will recommend the product that makes their life the easy, commissioned will recommend what makes them the most $$$... most consultants will recommend Oracle cause its job security! On Feb 4, 3:44 pm, Fernando Nunes <s...@onlinedomus.net> wrote: > Neil Truby wrote: > > "Chris Youll" <nospam_cyo...@comcast.net> wrote in message > >news:C62dnV3Z9MkWJjnanZ2dnUVZ_g2dnZ2d@comcast.com... > >> I have been trying to follow the resurgence of Informix IDS and the new > >> cheetah product line. In the "Chat with the Labs" presentations and the > >> IBM Web site a great deal is referenced about the ease of management. I > >> believe, I read or heard something about installing IDS and never have to > >> worry about it, it just runs. I don't think any database company would > >> come out and say their product requires more DBA's than anyone else. So, > >> is it the complexity of the environment that the RDBMS is in or is it the > >> RDBMS product that actually makes the product hands-free administration? > > >> Any specifics on what makes IDS hands-free would be useful. > > > Hmm. > > The name magic ingredient that makes DB2 "fully autonomic" I guess. It's > > called "Marketing". > > > That said, I find IDS can be pretty low-maintenance. One of the Board of > > Directors' personal profiles mentioned visiting sites where Informix has > > been chugging away in a corner for years, and in this respect - the ability > > to set a system up once and for it to perform adequately with little or no > > tuning and maintenance - Informix is very strong indeed. Whether it's > > desirable to neglect for any period of time a database, Informix or > > otherwise, upon which you reply for high availability and high performance > > is a highly debatable point IMHO. > > Besides all that was already said, this hands-free idea is also a strategic > direction. Many things that appeared in later version did take this into > consideration (high availability, footprint customization, automatic statistics > gathering, RTO, checkpoint auto-tunning, auto IO configuration) and several > ones that will probably show up in future versions are customer driven needs in > this area. For better understanding why it run so good without too much > maintenance you'll have to check some features that belong to the product since > long ago... > > Small footprint, multi-threaded architecture, very stable and reliable > optimizer, auto extent merging, auto index cleaning, online backups without > external tools, memory expansion capability etc. > > This capabilities and also the dedication of the support team were probably > some of the reasons why Cisco (http://www.db2mag.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201200302)decided to > use it inside some of their routers... They're surely not a DBA's playground... > They're intended to "just run", although this is obviously a very controlled > environment. But in fact many third party application developers enjoy these > features and take advantage of them to provide nearly hands-free database > environments on which to build their solutions. In fact, they're also the ones > who request some of these new features, since they want even more improvements > into it, to simplify their task. Many times the customers don't have DBA's, so > they have to do that as well as take care of their applications. > > Regards, > > -- > Fernando Nunes > Portugal > > http://informix-technology.blogspot.com > My email works... but I don't check it frequently...