Re: Senior Oracle DBA now Learning Informix by Request of Company:IThought Informix was Dead?

Art S. Kagel wrote: > Mark Townsend wrote: >> This is an old chestnut. It's never been proven that Informix is >> easier to own or operate than Oracle. > > PLEASE STOP! Laughing that hard causes me pain! > > Do you know of ANY Oracle sites that are running 2000, 4000, 8000, or > even 20000 server instances on geographically dispersed sites running > mission critical databases with 20 or 15 or even 10 DBAs? > > I know of Informix shops that are doing just that. So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number of DBAs. Proof is king. Anecdote is just anecdote. > > So give up the examples of lean mean Oracle shops or stop making me laugh. But I haven't seen any Informix examples yet. Show me yours first (and we all know how that ends) > Art S. Kagel

Mark Townsend said: > So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number of > DBAs. Proof is king. And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU open your kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > Mark Townsend said: >> So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number of >> DBAs. Proof is king. > > And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. > > We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU open your > kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? > Establish a valid comparison metric and I will have ago. Nbr of DBAs doesn't work, as usage patterns may be different between different environments. Nbr of Databases per DBA might work, but needs to be qualified by the version of software, deployment architecture, and the usage again. Nbr of DBAs per Gig of data managed doesn't work, as data warehouses would skew the results for OTLP environments. Nbr of days training offered doesn't work, as it more likely reflects the training org or even the capability of the curriculum developers. Seriously - this is my point. "Easier to manage" is extremely difficult to prove. Unlike performance where there are benchmarks that record transactions per minutes in fully audited environments; or HA, where there can be a measurement of wall clock time since last outage, there is no real unit of measurement for ease of management. The Edison guys have tried to establish a benchmark of sorts - nbr of steps, and the time required, to perform basic DBA tasks, on a given implementation. So basically a time and motion study. But to date they have only put DB2, SQL Server and Oracle through the mixer. And many of the vendors don't like the results, and argue them, so even that is problematic. So I stand by my statement "It's never been proven that Informix is easier to own or operate than Oracle." And I doubt that until there is a formally agreed benchmark for manageability in the industry, it is unlikely to ever be.

Mark Townsend wrote: > Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >> Mark Townsend said: >>> So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number of >>> DBAs. Proof is king. >> >> And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. >> >> We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU open >> your >> kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? > Establish a valid comparison metric and I will have ago. All right. Let's take big box chains. Something in the order of Ceiling*Mart or The Wigwam Depot. Such retailers have plenty (like thousands) of stores which run cookie-cutter operational apps in each store. How many installions of Oracle do they use to run per store. Where are the DBA's located (HQ, vs. on site). How many DBAs are there? How many stores are there? At the end there will be a DBA/store ratio to "get the job done". On actual stores and actual numbers you'll just have to trust us that we aren't lying. Most posters in this newsgroup know some of these DBA's personally. And it can be safely assumed that some of these DBA's read this thread. (because they are otherwise bored ;-) We'll do our best to believe you based on your good name. Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab WAIUG Conference http://www.iiug.org/waiug/present/Forum2006/Forum2006.html

Mark Townsend wrote: > Art S. Kagel wrote: > >> Mark Townsend wrote: > > >>> This is an old chestnut. It's never been proven that Informix is >>> easier to own or operate than Oracle. >> >> >> PLEASE STOP! Laughing that hard causes me pain! >> >> Do you know of ANY Oracle sites that are running 2000, 4000, 8000, or >> even 20000 server instances on geographically dispersed sites running >> mission critical databases with 20 or 15 or even 10 DBAs? >> >> I know of Informix shops that are doing just that. > > > > So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number of > DBAs. Proof is king. Anecdote is just anecdote. Sorry, but the organizations involved will have to step up and identify themselves because I don't know who does and does not want their competition to know how they do what they do. I will certify, and sit for an affidavit if you like, that I have personally spoken to the lead DBAs at the organizations I alluded to in my posting. I know for a fact the details imparted to me in confidence. Some of these are well known, and indeed I suspect you are as aware of them as I am, others are not openly discussed. Either way this is not anecdote. Hearsay in a technical, legal, sense, perhaps since I did not count the instances, servers, or DBA personnel records myself (though the entire DBA staff, minus one or two, of one of these orgs sat at a cocktail table with me one night in May), but fact none-the-less. >> So give up the examples of lean mean Oracle shops or stop making me >> laugh. > > > But I haven't seen any Informix examples yet. Show me yours first (and > we all know how that ends) I find it telling that you are not even willing to say "Yeah I will certify that there are similar customers using Oracle with thousands of servers with fewer than 20 DBAs also." but resort to discounting my own assertions and those of others instead. Art S. Kagel

Mark Townsend said: > So I stand by my statement "It's never been proven that Informix is > easier to own or operate than Oracle." Spoken like a man who knows he's beaten, or when you're losing, change the argument. ;o) -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > Mark Townsend said: >> So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number of >> DBAs. Proof is king. > > And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. > > We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU open your > kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? Because he asked first? How's that for a good reason? The sad truth is that you can't back up your statement with an example. Because if you could have ... you would have. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

Serge Rielau wrote: > Mark Townsend wrote: >> Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >>> Mark Townsend said: >>>> So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, >>>> number of >>>> DBAs. Proof is king. >>> >>> And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. >>> >>> We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU open >>> your >>> kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? >> Establish a valid comparison metric and I will have ago. > All right. Let's take big box chains. > Something in the order of Ceiling*Mart or The Wigwam Depot. > Such retailers have plenty (like thousands) of stores which run > cookie-cutter operational apps in each store. > How many installions of Oracle do they use to run per store. > Where are the DBA's located (HQ, vs. on site). How many DBAs are there? > How many stores are there? > At the end there will be a DBA/store ratio to "get the job done". > > On actual stores and actual numbers you'll just have to trust us that we > aren't lying. > Most posters in this newsgroup know some of these DBA's personally. > And it can be safely assumed that some of these DBA's read this thread. > (because they are otherwise bored ;-) > > We'll do our best to believe you based on your good name. > > Cheers > Serge Not a valid comparison and you know it. I'll give you a simple example to demonstrate the point. We have here in Seattle a very large cruise line. They have multiple Oracle databases running on each and every one of their ships plus Oracle applications running at their corporate offices (financial, CRM) plus in-house developed appplications. I would put the number of databases in the hundreds ... the number of DBAs is 1 with a manager acting as the backup. I am equally well aware of another Seattle organization that is the world's largest internet retailer. They have an entirely different ratio of DBAs to databases. Why? The DBAs in the two organizations are tasked with entirely different job descriptions and SLAs. If all a DBA does is add the occasional user and make sure the Korn shell script backing things up doesn't break ... my cat can manage databases. What I find fascinating is that someone who, at least in theory, makes his money improving a product to force DBAs into the unemployement line is being cheered on by those who stand to lose their jobs. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

I could, but I'm not allowed to. Quite possibly this is because customer thinks he has such a big advantage by using IDS, that they don't want to spread the word much. But I can't tell what they are really thinking, i.e. what really is the reason they don't allow me. Regards, Martin -- Martin Fuerderer IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany Information Management Informix URLs list: http://home.arcor.de/mfu1/informix/urls.html informix-list-bounces@iiug.org wrote on 14.12.2006 17:43:23: > Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > > Mark Townsend said: > >> So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number of > >> DBAs. Proof is king. > > > > And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. > > > > We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU open your > > kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? > > Because he asked first? How's that for a good reason? > > The sad truth is that you can't back up your statement with an example. > > Because if you could have ... you would have. > -- > Daniel A. Morgan > University of Washington > damorgan@x.washington.edu > (replace x with u to respond) > Puget Sound Oracle Users Group > www.psoug.org > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list

DA Morgan said: > Because if you could have ... you would have. Oh, we can. Mark's the one making the assertion that Oracle is easy to administer. We all know it's easy to administer, because we either maintain large number of instances single-handedly, or we do DBA work as a part-time occupation, or both. Mark claims that Informix is no easier to administer than Oracle, so we want to be shown that. If I was posting this on cdos, I'd expect the burden of proof to lie with me. -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

DA Morgan said: > What I find fascinating is that someone who, at least in theory, makes > his money improving a product to force DBAs into the unemployement > line is being cheered on by those who stand to lose their jobs. Let me explain our fascination: we all enjoy working with IDS. I've never heard anyone make that assertion about Oracle, unless they also had a penchant for the English vice. ;o) -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

DA Morgan wrote: > Serge Rielau wrote: >> Mark Townsend wrote: >>> Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >>>> Mark Townsend said: >>>>> So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, >>>>> number of >>>>> DBAs. Proof is king. >>>> >>>> And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. >>>> >>>> We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU >>>> open your >>>> kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? >>> Establish a valid comparison metric and I will have ago. >> All right. Let's take big box chains. >> Something in the order of Ceiling*Mart or The Wigwam Depot. >> Such retailers have plenty (like thousands) of stores which run >> cookie-cutter operational apps in each store. >> How many installions of Oracle do they use to run per store. >> Where are the DBA's located (HQ, vs. on site). How many DBAs are there? >> How many stores are there? >> At the end there will be a DBA/store ratio to "get the job done". > Not a valid comparison and you know it. I'll give you a simple example > to demonstrate the point. Make it a valid comparison! There must be some big box store somewhere running their operation on Oracle? There are plenty to go around: Future Shop, JC Penny, Sears, HBC, Target, Wal*Mart, The Home Depot, Rona, Canadian Tire, ... Wasn't Oracle making a big fuss about having Kaufhof in Germany as customer? Comparing IT requirements amongst these stores seems a very valid comparison. The IDSers know their horses. You or Mark pick yours or give up. Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab WAIUG Conference http://www.iiug.org/waiug/present/Forum2006/Forum2006.html

Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > Mark Townsend said: >> So I stand by my statement "It's never been proven that Informix is >> easier to own or operate than Oracle." > > Spoken like a man who knows he's beaten, or when you're losing, change the > argument. ;o) Then lets do this based on the scientific method. One of a DBA's major responsibilities is to perform backups of the database. Here is the complete command required to backup an Oracle database. What is the "easier" way to do it in Informix worthy of all the fanfare? RMAN> BACKUP DATABASE; -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

DA Morgan wrote: > RMAN> BACKUP DATABASE; *lol* Very good. I'm sure that works well when you talk to an executive. If I'm an executive I'm looking at the bottom line: X is a company in my industry of my size. They appear to be getting away with an IT budget half as big as mine and yet extract same or better value: I have a problem. :-( How does backup work when you write it procedurally btw? ;-) Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab WAIUG Conference http://www.iiug.org/waiug/present/Forum2006/Forum2006.html

DA Morgan said: > Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >> Mark Townsend said: >>> So I stand by my statement "It's never been proven that Informix is >>> easier to own or operate than Oracle." >> >> Spoken like a man who knows he's beaten, or when you're losing, change >> the >> argument. ;o) > > Then lets do this based on the scientific method. What, you want to change the argument as well? You're missing the point. Whether you type "ontape -s -L 0" (or possibly "onbar -b -w") or "rman" (I assume / guess) and then "backup database;" is not the issue. What are all the things the DBA has to do on a day to day basis with their database? Yes, we all have to back our databases up, but big instances are typically backed up by the backup team driving the backup from TSM or Veritas as part of the scheduled backups. DBA's actually manually taking backups is soooo 90's, you know. :o) -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

Will this backup 1 databases or all databases in an instance? informix backups are a single command as well depending on which utility. ontape -s -L 0or onbar -b -L 0 Both of these options backup the entire instance. BTW, Currently a company is running 1250 instances/DBA or 10,000 instances for 8 DBA's (source - Ambuj Goyal, General Manager of IBM at User Forum in DC this past weekend). Your example of 100 db's/DBA is a far cry. Plus, the 1250 instances could contain 1 or many databases. Just my thougths. DA Morgan <damorgan@psoug.o rg> To Sent by: informix-list@iiug.org informix-list-bou cc nces@iiug.org Subject Re: Senior Oracle DBA now Learning 12/14/2006 01:05 Informix by Request PM Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > Mark Townsend said: >> So I stand by my statement "It's never been proven that Informix is >> easier to own or operate than Oracle." > > Spoken like a man who knows he's beaten, or when you're losing, change the > argument. ;o) Then lets do this based on the scientific method. One of a DBA's major responsibilities is to perform backups of the database. Here is the complete command required to backup an Oracle database. What is the "easier" way to do it in Informix worthy of all the fanfare? RMAN> BACKUP DATABASE; -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org _______________________________________________ Informix-list mailing list Informix-list@iiug.org http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list

> Mark Townsend wrote: >> Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >>> Mark Townsend said: >>>> So name a few. Name of company, number of instances, versions, number >>>> of >>>> DBAs. Proof is king. >>> >>> And a prospecting list for a hungry Oracle salesman. >>> >>> We all know Informix is easier to run than Oracle. Why don't YOU open >>> your >>> kimono first? Why don't you show us why we're wrong? >> Establish a valid comparison metric and I will have ago. > All right. Let's take big box chains. > Something in the order of Ceiling*Mart or The Wigwam Depot. > Such retailers have plenty (like thousands) of stores which run > cookie-cutter operational apps in each store. > How many installions of Oracle do they use to run per store. > Where are the DBA's located (HQ, vs. on site). How many DBAs are there? > How many stores are there? > At the end there will be a DBA/store ratio to "get the job done". > > On actual stores and actual numbers you'll just have to trust us that we > aren't lying. > Most posters in this newsgroup know some of these DBA's personally. > And it can be safely assumed that some of these DBA's read this thread. > (because they are otherwise bored ;-) > > We'll do our best to believe you based on your good name. > > Cheers > Serge > -- > Serge Rielau > DB2 Solutions Development > IBM Toronto Lab > > WAIUG Conference > http://www.iiug.org/waiug/present/Forum2006/Forum2006.html > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list I recently worked for The Wigwam Depot as an Informix DBA. We maintained 6000+ Informix instances in 2000+ retail locations and 100+ corporate Informix instances with 2.5 full time Informix DBAs (2 full time DBAs and a Team Lead who split time between IDS administration and management type stuff). It is my understanding that they are currently maintaining the same configuration with 1.5 DBAs with help from 5 "Other DB Engine" DBAs to help with the after hours on call rotation. A majority of my time was spent doing paper work, rolling schema changes to the enterprise to support new applications, making sure the store associates inserted a new tape so we could take a backup and reading c.d.i. I did not spend a lot of time administering the engines and I now know how the Maytag repairman felt. The only real engine problem I encountered in my 13 month tour of duty was a corrupt index caused by a disk failure at one of the retail locations. I now work for a telecom company that uses Informix to enable, bill and report on 2 million phone calls a day. We maintain 18 24/7 Informix instances with .5 full time Informix DBAs (I split my time between DBA, development and sysadmin work). Being a 24/7 shop we have a low tolerance for down time. This is one of the reasons we love Informix. Almost all of our instances had been up for over 400 days until we recently took them down to upgrade from 9.3 to 10.0 (that was a whopping 2 minutes of downtime.) Andrew

Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > DA Morgan said: >> Because if you could have ... you would have. > > Oh, we can. Mark's the one making the assertion that Oracle is easy to > administer. We all know it's easy to administer, because we either > maintain large number of instances single-handedly, or we do DBA work as a > part-time occupation, or both. > > Mark claims that Informix is no easier to administer than Oracle, so we > want to be shown that. > > If I was posting this on cdos, I'd expect the burden of proof to lie with me. Seems to me that the "ease to administer" claim was that Informix was easier. I isn't just Mark claiming Oracle is as easy or easier ... I would agree with that statement too. Though I would add the proviso that the DBA doing so is competent with 9i or 10g and isn't just a dinosaur still writing Korn shell scripts. The problem you have is not whether one is easier than the other. That's what a vendor tells a CFO as he is arguing that the DBA, and his/her payroll expense can be dropped. The question those in this group should be asking is whether there will still be a job in 5-7 years for the skills that they have. There is no question that there will be paying jobs administering Oracle. I don't see IBM doing anything other than giving Informix the slow death of a thousand paper-cuts. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > DA Morgan said: >> What I find fascinating is that someone who, at least in theory, makes >> his money improving a product to force DBAs into the unemployement >> line is being cheered on by those who stand to lose their jobs. > > Let me explain our fascination: we all enjoy working with IDS. I've never > heard anyone make that assertion about Oracle, unless they also had a > penchant for the English vice. ;o) "the English vice" ... Not into that in any respect. And I am loathe to use the phrases I'd choose in response. But there are many of us that find Oracle a joy because it does what it is asked to do. 1. Solves the business problem. 2. Pays the mortgage and puts the kids through university. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

Serge Rielau wrote: > There must be some big box store somewhere running their operation on > Oracle? Big box retailers are legacy. There must be a major internet retailer (Amazon.com, eBay) or aerospace giant (Boeing) or phone company (AT&T, Cingular, T-Mobile) somewhere running their operation on Informix. Go for it. You folks put forward the claim of a handful of DBAs and 6000 instances. All fluff I presume. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

Serge Rielau wrote: > DA Morgan wrote: >> RMAN> BACKUP DATABASE; > *lol* Very good. I'm sure that works well when you talk to an executive. > If I'm an executive I'm looking at the bottom line: > X is a company in my industry of my size. They appear to be getting away > with an IT budget half as big as mine and yet extract same or better > value: I have a problem. :-( > > How does backup work when you write it procedurally btw? ;-) > > Cheers > Serge You can laugh if you wish ... and you can try to change the subject to procedural code if you wish ... but I don't see any example from any IBM product doing it as easily. If you've got the goods ... post 'em spin doctor. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

Obnoxio The Clown wrote: > DA Morgan said: >> Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >>> Mark Townsend said: >>>> So I stand by my statement "It's never been proven that Informix is >>>> easier to own or operate than Oracle." >>> Spoken like a man who knows he's beaten, or when you're losing, change >>> the >>> argument. ;o) >> Then lets do this based on the scientific method. > > What, you want to change the argument as well? You're missing the point. > Whether you type "ontape -s -L 0" (or possibly "onbar -b -w") or "rman" (I > assume / guess) and then "backup database;" is not the issue. Is this an acknowledgement that backing up is no easier in Informix than in Oracle? I hope so. Because it is absolutely the case. The syntax is different. That doesn't make on easier. > What are all the things the DBA has to do on a day to day basis with their > database? Yes, we all have to back our databases up, but big instances are > typically backed up by the backup team driving the backup from TSM or > Veritas as part of the scheduled backups. So what is it in Informix that leads to all the crowing about ease of administration. Put up on the Informix side and I'll respond with the Oracle equivalent. We'll let the lurkers draw their own conclusions. > DBA's actually manually taking backups is soooo 90's, you know. :o) The topic was ease of administration ... not the job title doing the work. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

Andrew Ford wrote: > I recently worked for The Wigwam Depot as an Informix DBA. I just did both google and yahoo search for 'Wigwam Depot' hoping to learn something. How does one have 2,000 retail locations and zero web presence? -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

Darren_Jacobs@carmax.com wrote: > Will this backup 1 databases or all databases in an instance? > > informix backups are a single command as well depending on which utility. > > ontape -s -L 0> or > onbar -b -L 0> > Both of these options backup the entire instance. > > BTW, > Currently a company is running 1250 instances/DBA or 10,000 instances for 8 > DBA's (source - Ambuj Goyal, General Manager of IBM at User Forum in DC > this past weekend). Your example of 100 db's/DBA is a far cry. Plus, the > 1250 instances could contain 1 or many databases. > > Just my thougths. > > > > > DA Morgan > <damorgan@psoug.o > rg> To > Sent by: informix-list@iiug.org > informix-list-bou cc > nces@iiug.org > Subject > Re: Senior Oracle DBA now Learning > 12/14/2006 01:05 Informix by Request > PM > > > > > > > > > > Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >> Mark Townsend said: >>> So I stand by my statement "It's never been proven that Informix is >>> easier to own or operate than Oracle." >> Spoken like a man who knows he's beaten, or when you're losing, change > the >> argument. ;o) > > Then lets do this based on the scientific method. > > One of a DBA's major responsibilities is to perform backups of the > database. > > Here is the complete command required to backup an Oracle database. > What is the "easier" way to do it in Informix worthy of all the fanfare? > > RMAN> BACKUP DATABASE; > -- > Daniel A. Morgan > University of Washington > damorgan@x.washington.edu > (replace x with u to respond) > Puget Sound Oracle Users Group > www.psoug.org > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list It is a pleasure to see that someone can post commands/code rather than talk. Oracle: RMAN> BACKUP DATABASE; Informix: ontape -s -L 0or onbar -b -L 0 The reality, as can be clearly seen, is that they are different ... and equally easy to implement. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.org

----- Original Message ----- From: "DA Morgan" <damorgan@psoug.org> Newsgroups: comp.databases.informix To: <informix-list@iiug.org> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 1:57 PM Subject: Re: Senior Oracle DBA now Learning Informix by Request > Obnoxio The Clown wrote: >> DA Morgan said: >>> Because if you could have ... you would have. >> >> Oh, we can. Mark's the one making the assertion that Oracle is easy to >> administer. We all know it's easy to administer, because we either >> maintain large number of instances single-handedly, or we do DBA work as >> a >> part-time occupation, or both. >> >> Mark claims that Informix is no easier to administer than Oracle, so we >> want to be shown that. >> >> If I was posting this on cdos, I'd expect the burden of proof to lie with >> me. > > Seems to me that the "ease to administer" claim was that Informix was > easier. I isn't just Mark claiming Oracle is as easy or easier ... I > would agree with that statement too. Though I would add the proviso that > the DBA doing so is competent with 9i or 10g and isn't just a dinosaur > still writing Korn shell scripts. > > The problem you have is not whether one is easier than the other. That's > what a vendor tells a CFO as he is arguing that the DBA, and his/her > payroll expense can be dropped. The question those in this group should > be asking is whether there will still be a job in 5-7 years for the > skills that they have. > > There is no question that there will be paying jobs administering > Oracle. I don't see IBM doing anything other than giving Informix the > slow death of a thousand paper-cuts. > -- > Daniel A. Morgan > University of Washington > damorgan@x.washington.edu > (replace x with u to respond) > Puget Sound Oracle Users Group > www.psoug.org > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list > There is no question that there will be paying jobs administering > Oracle. I don't see IBM doing anything other than giving Informix the > slow death of a thousand paper-cuts. I have had no problems finding work and don't forsee any problems in the next 5-7 years. To take a line from OTC, IBM giving Informix a slow death is sooooooooooooooo 2002. Can you provide examples proving this slow death theory? I strongly feel Informix is alive and well within IBM for the following reasons 1. IDS 9.5 released as 10.0. Why not just release 9.5 as an upgrade instead of a new version if you want to kill the product? 2. Cheetah. Why not just release as 10.1 without the new features and avoid the fancy secret naming unless you want to get people excited about a new release and generate some buzz? 3. Increased development budget. Why hire new engineers and bring in engineers from the DB2 side if you want to just fix bugs and keep the existing customer somewhat happy? 4. IBM engineers, sales force and upper management sent accross the world to speak at Informix conferences and Infobahns. Travel is expensive, why would IBM spend the money to send these people to these things if the product is dying? 5. Informix license revenue is growing by double digits. A clear indicator of a product dying is double digit growth. 6. Rebranding of database division from DB2 to Information Management. Lets rebrand EVERYTHING and when we kill off Informix, we'll rebrand it all back to DB2.

----- Original Message ----- From: "DA Morgan" <damorgan@psoug.org> Newsgroups: comp.databases.informix To: <informix-list@iiug.org> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 2:13 PM Subject: Re: Senior Oracle DBA now Learning Informix by Request > Andrew Ford wrote: > >> I recently worked for The Wigwam Depot as an Informix DBA. > > I just did both google and yahoo search for 'Wigwam Depot' hoping to > learn something. > > How does one have 2,000 retail locations and zero web presence? > -- > Daniel A. Morgan > University of Washington > damorgan@x.washington.edu > (replace x with u to respond) > Puget Sound Oracle Users Group > www.psoug.org > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list Did your search for Ceiling*Mart yeild any results?

DA Morgan said: > I don't see IBM doing anything other than giving Informix the > slow death of a thousand paper-cuts. Not changing the argument, are you, Daniel? Mark was very insistent that the argument here was that Oracle is no harder to administer than IDS. -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

DA Morgan said: > But there are many of us that > find Oracle a joy because it does what it is asked to do. > > 2. Pays the mortgage and puts the kids through university. Yep, it requires more work. ;o) Actually, not a bad business strategy, really. Make more people dependent on it, ensure its critical mass. You can say what you like about those bastards at Oracle, but they sure know how to make their product stick! -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

DA Morgan said: > Andrew Ford wrote: > >> I recently worked for The Wigwam Depot as an Informix DBA. > > I just did both google and yahoo search for 'Wigwam Depot' hoping to > learn something. > > How does one have 2,000 retail locations and zero web presence? Daniel, I think you need to go to Amazon.com and see if you can buy yourself a sense of humour. If that doesn't work, maybe these guys can help: http://www.homedepot.com/ -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

DA Morgan said: > You can laugh if you wish ... and you can try to change the subject to > procedural code if you wish ... but I don't see any example from any > IBM product doing it as easily. > > If you've got the goods ... post 'em spin doctor. onbar -b is less typing. But having your sysadmin / backup team take thebackups of your database along with all the other backups they take, to a storage manager, fully automated and without involving the DBA at all is surely a better option. I can't really see how a DBA taking a backup manually is better...? -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

DA Morgan said: > > Is this an acknowledgement that backing up is no easier in Informix than > in Oracle? I hope so. Because it is absolutely the case. The syntax is > different. That doesn't make on easier. Well, in the specific case of taking backups, I would assume that the DBA having to take a backup manually was in fact more difficult than having fully automated backups taken from a storage manager. Are you saying that Oracle can't do this? If you are, then you are saying that in this one matter, Oracle is definitely more difficult to manage than IDS. However, by choosing one specific task, you are obfuscating the point, which is that if you have a list of 100 things that a DBA must do to Oracle every year to make sure it runs OK, then the equivalent list of things to do in IDS would be shorter. > The topic was ease of administration ... not the job title doing the work. But if your backup is fully automated and integrated with all other backups, then it isn't really any work at all. By having to use rman, you introduce the possibility of human error or failure to perform the backup. -- Bye now, Obnoxio "I don't read newspapers anymore except the local rag which I do weekly to cheer myself trying to see if anyone I hate has been stabbed." -- Horribilis XVI -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean.

> Mark was very insistent that > the argument here was that Oracle is no harder to administer than IDS. Mark was very insistent that it's never been proven that Informix is easier to own or operate than Oracle.

> > 5. Informix license revenue is growing by double digits. A clear indicator > of a product dying is double digit growth. > Please provide a cite for this statment