sql server vs. informix

My company is looking for a database for our intranet and extranet data. The debate is between Informix and SQL server. We use Informix already for our accounting system. However, we are adopting a lot of Microsoft products as we migrate to web-based applications (Microsoft Transaction Server, Visual Interdev, ASP pages, IIS,e tc.). We currently use Microsoft Access for the smaller databases that will be available from the intranet and extranet. These Access apps have been developed using VB as a front end. Should we go with SQL server just because we are seeming to become a Microsoft shop? Will the VB/Access experience make it easier to learn SQL server than Informix? (Even though we have informix, we don't have a db administrator, and we don't really know it either). Or is Informix just as good? Are there any compatibility problems in using Informix with all the Microsoft products? If I'm asking the wrong questions, it's because we just don't know. Any feedback is welcome.

June Rigsbee wrote: > > My company is looking for a database for our intranet and extranet > data. The debate is between Informix and SQL server. We use Informix > already for our accounting system. However, we are adopting a lot of > Microsoft products as we migrate to web-based applications (Microsoft > Transaction Server, Visual Interdev, ASP pages, IIS,e tc.). We > currently use Microsoft Access for the smaller databases that will be > available from the intranet and extranet. These Access apps have been > developed using VB as a front end. Should we go with SQL server just > because we are seeming to become a Microsoft shop? Will the VB/Access > experience make it easier to learn SQL server than Informix? (Even > though we have informix, we don't have a db administrator, and we > don't really know it either). Or is Informix just as good? Are there > any compatibility problems in using Informix with all the Microsoft > products? If I'm asking the wrong questions, it's because we just > don't know. Any feedback is welcome. Informix IDS is a VASTLY superior database engine to MS SQL Server, or anything else for that matter. Performance, scaleability, parallelization, portability. Don't ignore portability what happens when you finally get fed up with WinNT, I obviously assume you will get fed up and you may disagree but one has to plan for all eventuallities if one wants to survive, for your WEB servers and decide to move to a UNIX platform? Will Microsoft ever come out with SQL Server for Solaris? For Linux? For HPUX? I doubt it. Then where are you? If your database grows to the multi-terrabyte range can SQL Server handle it? Can the PC hardware on a single server? Can SQL Server distribute the database onto an entire cluster of servers and spread a single query over all of them to improve response time? Informix IDS/XPO can! Sybase does not have this technology. Oracle uses a shared locking architecture which has MUCH higher overhead than Informix's shared nothing technology and tends to bog down with more than a few cluster nodes. Compatibility? Well, compatible with what? SQL Server provides several SQL extensions that developers, and MS V-language libraries, tend to take advantage of (ex: returning column names as the first row of a query, permitting GROUP BY and ORDER BY columns which are not selected, etc all of which are NOT ANSI Standard compliant) which makes SQL Server INCOMPATIBLE with ANSI SQL Standards compliant engines like Informix. If you use standard ODBC calls (rather than the MS database objects) and avoid SQL extensions then Informix will be compatible with your code. Better yet avoid MS/WinNT specific development tools altogether and remain portable across hardware and OS's for your source code also. Art S. Kagel