Re: Informix beats Oracle

DA Morgan wrote: > Fernando Nunes wrote: >> DA Morgan wrote: >>> Ian Michael Gumby wrote: >>>> Maybe I'm being vague because you can hear but you don't seem to >>>> listen. >>>> >>>> Again, you want innovations. >>>> >>>> Informix has the premiere HA/HDR implementation. >>> >>> What I see, again, is a vague generalities. If the shoe were on the >>> other foot I would put together a list of features demonstrating >>> my point. For example: >>> >>> 1. Do you have an equivalent technology to RAC? >>> 2. Do you have an equivalent technology to Data Guard TAF? >>> 3. Do you have an equivalent technology to Flashback Database? >>> 4. Do you have an equivalent technology to Online Redefinition? >>> 5. Do you have an equivalent technology to Grid Control Repurposing? >>> 6. Do you have an equivalent technology to resumable transactions? >>> 7. Do you have an equivalent technology to ASM? >>> 8. Do you have an equivalent technology to Flashback drop? >>> 9. Do you have an equivalent technology to Save Points? >>> and would keep going until I hit 20. >>> I'm done with this thread unless someone that actually knows both >>> products wants to step in and help Ian out a bit. >> >> I have no particular interest in keeping this thread alive, and I >> don't want to speak by others... So, this is just my opinions... and >> we all know the story with opinions >> >> You have several "categories" of features here. Some of them belong to >> standards, others are nice (although expensive) and others are what >> I'd call "interesting" but I wouldn't care too much about them. This >> categories will influence the possibility of seeing them implemented >> in the future. >> >> Personally I'm not very enthusiastic about the flashback stuff >> (specially drops). IDS allows PIT table recover from a backup image... >> Eventually slower, but takes less resources, although I easily agree >> that in some situations flashback is nice. >> >> TAF, RAC are nice ideas. >> Online Redefenition is interesting, although the impression I get from >> fellow Oracle DBAs is that if it's an heavy hit object, it will be >> hard to do. >> >> The best of Informix is not easily mappable to "features". I'd say >> most Informix DBAs appreciate some of these: >> >> 1-DSA >> 2-Lightweight >> 3-Small footprint >> 4-Command line tools (onstat...) - curiously IDS 11.10 brings SQL >> Admin API :) >> 5-HDR/ER - Several improvements in IDS 11.10 >> 6-Extents/space handling (oracle should be there with "locally >> managed", but Informix always worked like that..) >> 7-Simplicity >> 8-Cost. You don't need to keep talking to the IBM salesperson. Most of >> the features are already included. In fact I'd say IBM could do a lot >> better trying to cross-sell to Informix customers... >> 10-Optimizer behavior. Give it good statistics and you're ok. I'm >> amazed by the quantity of 3rd party applications that still require >> RULE BASED... >> 11-ontape. Very old, very "rustic", but still being used by lots of >> customers. >> 12-migration process. Besides the testings, it's just a mater of >> stopping with the old version and starting up with the new one... Even >> from 7 to 11.10... the process is extremely fast and quite simple >> 13- Several small features like in-place ALTERS. Oracle also has them >> but last I checked it still had bigger limitations. B-Tree >> cleaner/scanner is also very nice. >> 14-reliability/stability >> 15-scalability >> >> >> >> If I could choose some features Oracle has and put them in IDS I >> wouldn't choose the ones you mentioned... In fact, if you knew IDS >> reasonably well, and given your Oracle knowledge, I'd bet you would >> choose others :) >> I will not post these "favorites" here... I prefer to open them as >> feature requests... maybe someday some of them will see the light :) > > I only chose that specific list because they were features related to > high availability which is what Ian was going off about. > > Not sure why you listed #2 unless I misunderstand your use of > "lightweight." > > Not sure why you listed #3 either. Given the current price of disk the > Oracle footprint works out to about $11.25 at retail. Not exactly the > kind of thing anyone is going to even notice with an enterprise > database. > > #6 makes sense but given Oracle has had locally managed tablespaces > since 8i (1999) its a bit of old news. > > #7 fascinates me but I've yet to see anyone detail what specifically > qualifies as "simplicity." What is it that is simple in product I but > not simple in product O? > > Can't disagree with #8 but then I expect IBM would raise the price to > what the market would bear if it would bear higher. > > No #9. > > #10 is dead with 10g as Rule Based is history. But third-party apps > not being well written and not being kept up-to-date is hardly the > fault of the underlying database product. Put those apps on SQL Server > or DB2 and they are equally rotten. > > Ontape (#11) is good and has traditionally been the best but the > capabilities added to RMAN in 10g (single block recovery of an online > object) has it trumped. > > Truth is few people I know back up to tape anymore anyway. We all back > up to cabinets full of SATA drives and ship the drives off-site. Daniel, ontape is just a name. It should probably be renamed to something else, since it can process to tape, disk, standard out/standard in, to a pipe, to a directory etc. For instance with ontape, you can easily perform the following .... ontape -s -L 0 | gzip | encrypt > backup_device... M.P. > > I'd be interested in comparing limitations (#13). What limitations are > you referring to? With regard to indexes ... all indexes in Oracle can > be rebuilt/coalesced real-time and in parallel. Check out DBMS_PCXUTIL, > and . > http://www.psoug.org/reference/dbms_pclxutil.html > http://www.psoug.org/reference/dbms_index_utl.html > http://www.psoug.org/reference/dbms_i_index_utl.html > The fact that Oracle provides capabilities but most DBAs are too > lazy to learn them is not the fault of the software. > > I'll discount 14 and 15 on your list as those are not "features" in the > sense that the term is normally used but I will look into #1 as it is > the only one I am not familiar with. > > Thanks for helping Ian out though they are not the 20 HA features > he was pontificating about.. <g>

Madison Pruet wrote: > ontape -s -L 0 | gzip | encrypt > backup_device...> Shouldn't that be "ontape -s -L 0 -t STDIO" ? Anyway, that's pretty much what I'm using except for the encryption part. What do you use for encryption exactly, any recommendations? Regards, -- Aleksander Kamenik system administrator +372 6659 649 aleksander@krediidiinfo.ee Krediidiinfo AS http://www.krediidiinfo.ee/

Aleksander Kamenik wrote: > Madison Pruet wrote: > >> ontape -s -L 0 | gzip | encrypt > backup_device...>> > > Shouldn't that be "ontape -s -L 0 -t STDIO" ? > > Anyway, that's pretty much what I'm using except for the encryption > part. What do you use for encryption exactly, any recommendations? > > Regards, > The -t STDIO is not needed if onconfig is pointing to STDIO ;-) It's fairly easy to write your own encryption program by using openssl (www.openssl.org). In fact if I remember correctly, when you build openssl, it will create encryption/decryption demo programs which could be used.

Aleksander Kamenik wrote: > Madison Pruet wrote: > >> ontape -s -L 0 | gzip | encrypt > backup_device...>> > > Shouldn't that be "ontape -s -L 0 -t STDIO" ? > > Anyway, that's pretty much what I'm using except for the encryption > part. What do you use for encryption exactly, any recommendations? > > Regards, > STDIO should be defined for TABEDEV in $ONCONFIG. -- Fernando Nunes Portugal http://informix-technology.blogspot.com My email works... but I don't check it frequently...

Madison Pruet wrote: > The -t STDIO is not needed if onconfig is pointing to STDIO ;-) Right. I'm, doing both to tape and to disk so I have the real tape device in $ONCONFIG. My bad. > It's fairly easy to write your own encryption program by using openssl > (www.openssl.org). In fact if I remember correctly, when you build > openssl, it will create encryption/decryption demo programs which could > be used. I will look into this, thanks. -- Aleksander Kamenik system administrator +372 6659 649 aleksander@krediidiinfo.ee Krediidiinfo AS http://www.krediidiinfo.ee/