Re: Informix on NT vs Unix

CK Kee <ckkee@silkroute.com> wrote: :hi people, : :We are assessing the relative merits of using either the NT or the Unix :version of Informix Universal server. Is there even an NT version of Universal Server at this time? Very interesting. :All comments appreciated, especially from the developer perspective :(throughput is not as critical). 1. Don't listen to NT bashing. 2. Do listen to descriptions of real differences between NT and Unix. Unix is a safer operating system in that it's well known exactly what it can handle, how it will behave in different situation and so on. NT is the new kid on the block that you do not yet know all about. Unix is relatively easy to administrate as a database server. NT may be hard. Unix is harder to administrate as a server for "everything", NT may be easier, at least in some situations. Your's is a database server - Unix is easy. NT is not all that well known, it depends a lot on what you want to do. 3. To utilize Universal Server for it's fancy datatypes you will probably use MS Windows workstations (95 or NT) if web services isn't your only purpose. You should however not let this influence your choice of server. Too many people do. The connectivity is TCP/IP in all cases so Unix is as easy (or easier) to connect to as an NT server. 4. Currently you can easily scale Unix servers far beyond anything an NT server can reasonably do. This is an issue although you say that througput is not critical if your database may become big or the number of users can become large. You do want some throughput, don't you? 5. It will be another 1 to 3 years until NT can scale enough (16 or 32 300MHz - 500MHz Pentium Pro++ processors and clusters) that the issue may no longer be as big. After this it will still be several years if ever, until NT can scale to the top of Unix performance. 6. Informix have a problem on the Unix side in that they generally port to Sun, HP and IBM. These companies now sell vastly overpriced Unix servers in the low to medium size of the market. With Unix on a Compaq Proliant 500 with 4 200MHz Pentium Pro processors you generally get about the performance of a Sun Ultra Enterprice 3000 at perhaps half the price or less. You also get all the same facilities in the machine (ECC memory, fast disk I/O, hot swap disks, RAID if you want, management software+++). It's a problem that Informix isn't more active in porting to PC type servers (SCO, Solaris X86 or Linux OS). Had they been, there would have been less of an issue what OS to select at the low to medium end. 7. With the porting problem described above NT may be a viable alternative to save money on hardware/OS if the scaling and performance issue isn't a problem. Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org