Re: An interesting meeting with IBM

Andy Kent wrote: > Great post Andrew, a true service to the Informix community? > > Just a couple of bits of shrapnel to throw around: > > Thank goodness they seem to have finally done their homework on IDS. > Let's hope the apparent uprating of its perceived value will be > translated into some half-decent marketing and customer service. yup - that would be nice. Any change in the way IDS is presented must first be preceeded by an internal change of perception. As I mentioned, that seems to be arriving now. The chap who uttered those words was from the IBM side, and I'll bet they are not allowed to utter anything unauthorised, so in a small way his words are very interesting indeed. I'm waiting to see what comes next, after hearing the suggestion that something will be happening to ramp up the visiblility of IDS. I hope we're not disappointed by something that's half-assed or doesn't even appear. One thing for certain; the IBM'ers were freely talking about the strengths and value of IDS, and all it's great technology. > But there's still a tacit assumption that everyone will one day go to > DB2. Everyone knows that simply hasn't been happening (the site I'm on > at the moment is gradually moving to Oracle and my previous one is in > the middle of a wholesale switch to MSSQL). They've got their heads > where the sun don't shine if they think this drift will be changed > easily. They may well end up regretting that after what I've seen about the future of the engines. Oracle won't be getting the best from another engine that would allow it to leap-frog over it's weaknesses. There is definitely an assumption that we'll be on DB/2 eventually, but here's the spin: they sincerely think that by about 2008, DB/2 and IDS will have shared so much and will be functionally and administratively equivalent, that it becomes moot. If WE can see that they are indeed merged, then I really don't give a damn. DB/2 will only be equivalent to the good parts of IDS if it really does absorb all the good stuff. They won't fool me if they don't deliver. I tried to install a DB/2 Express trial download on my laptop the other day. There were errors in the install. I was frightened. I de-installed it, pending the chance to install a version on a Linux box with more resources. I've also tried to install a trial version of Oracle for fun several months ago, and reached the same conclusion. My install of Sequel Server was more successful, but I did manage to almost immediately do something that stopped me from connecting, and I was not able to connect to give myself permission to connect. I de-installed that too. Of course, I did not persist, and I guess it's being a bit fanciful to think that an IDS install is completely foolproof, but compared to IDS, all the setup just to get connected and working on the other engines is a bit of a joke. Many people say that DB/2 is more arcane than Oracle to manage, although DB/2 needs less adminstration. I guess what I'm ponderously getting to is, none of the other engines really offer what we like about IDS. They may offer their own strengths, but not the ones we are comfortable with :-) But consider this: All the major engines have genuine strengths and merits. They also have weaknesses that irk. How good will an engine be which combines all the good features from 2 out of the 4 most important engines? If IBM really can put the best of each into each engine, we'll be looking at something fantastic in 4-5 years time. We've already seen that the Informix engineers can produce great code. Consider the new multi-threaded model they developed starting at version 7 (6, really) Look at their efforts to integrate Illustra to create the Universal server stuff. Look at the hard-core warehousing capabilities of XPS. Look at replication. Etc. I have absolutely no doubt that the IDS development will be achieved. The IDS engineers now have far more resources than they ever had, so they are full steam ahead with a wishlist that is larger than they've ever been able to handle. When work has to be done to put a DB/2 feature in, they don't even have to steal, reinvent or reverse engineer a piece of technology. They just ask for it and start knitting new sleeves. Consider the recent injection of UNICODE from DB/2, which must be good news to someone (shrug - all my work is in English) Very few ideas have been rejected because of time constraints. Something was mentioned; I forget what it was, but I remember smirking and nodding sagely when the reasoning was presented... I recall that the feature was only delayed a year; it wasn't even dropped. By the same token, DB/2 Engineers are now on the same team. So they are getting the HDR code; DB/2 will have HDR which is as strong as IDS. DB/2 will soon have equivalent tools to onstat, so all our maintenance scripts will keep working. IBM is very firmly committed to adding what they call "autonomic administration" into DB/2, so that maintenance of DB/2 can becomes as easy as IDS. Can you think of something that IDS does better than DB/2? Then it will probably go into DB/2. The teams aren't competing anymore, they are helping each other. I have no doubt that the goals will be reached in 2008. Or, 2009 since all software is always late, right ?-) Therefore I am not ultimately worried about the assumption that we will move to DB/2. In fact, IDS will not be dropped even after 2008. If I understand properly, it will become the "embeddable very low maintenance database from IBM", therefore all of us small to medium businesses* will be able to shrink-wrap IDS into our product deliveries. Because I'm convinced that the technology will be shared, merged and plain-old enhanced, I am sure that when we arrive at 2008 we won't give a damn which engine we install. Perhaps we will sometimes install IDS, sometimes DB/2. Who cares? > - They might as well rename the damn thing. Then they'd be able to > keep it as a separate product without shuddering at the thought of > "that" takeover. IDS is a cr*p name. OnLine was better. Suggestions Well, it might happen. Maybe it will subtly be renamed to IBM Dynamic Server - IDS :->> Maybe it will be IDS/DB2. Maybe they'll call it Fred. Once again, who cares? > - As one for whom the Informix product line has provided 90% of my > ability to feed myself since 1986, my main personal concern is that my > skills are still going to be worth something after 2008. Even if IBM > managed to rein in their remaining sceptical users I'm still not > convincved I'll have a job / client base if everything's going to have > DB2 written in front of it in four years. I don't know what they can > do about that but I hope they will recognise that Informix has a > loyal, highly-skilled base of technicians. I hope that won't all go in > the bin. I'm not sure that so many people have abandoned IDS. Upgrades to 9.40 have been faster than any other delivery. That doesn't sound like abandonment to me. Sure, there are some highly vocal people screaming in the newsgroup, but that hardly counts as the voice of the majority. I think it's more the voice of the hysterical, meself. It will only go into the bin if the IBM and the Informix community allows it. I