Informix Vs MS SQL for web solutions

Questions Relating to Database Technologies We are currenlty in the process of embarking on a number of projects that involve web enabled technologies. These include a web enabled CRM solution for in house customer contact management and call centre support, Internet mortgage applications facility, workflow and document imaging and mortgage loan tracking information access via the internet. Each of these projects has a common element 'ffffc3'ffffa2'ffffe2'ffff82'ffffac'ffffe2'ffff80'ffff9c to access a single off-mainframe repository of data for read or update purposes. Initial database volumes will be quite small ie. less than 100,000 customers but growth is expected though difficult to quantify. We are faced with a situation whereby individual solution providers are recommending MS SQL server as the database server. As I see it, there will be common elements in each of the databases and it is expected that most of the solutions will involve some data being transferred from our mainframe data store down to the off-mainframe store (DB). This is a concern for me for the following reasons : 1. Potentially multiple copies of data residing in different places 'ffffc3'ffffa2'ffffe2'ffff82'ffffac'ffffe2'ffff80'ffff9c the potential for loss of consistency etc. 2. Multiple databases requiring duplicate effort 3. Higher management overhead I therefore feel that it makes good sense to consolidate these individual off-mainframe stores under the control of a single DB engine. The obvious choices are MS SQL 6.5 or 7.0 or Informix 7.22. We currently have a significant amount of Informix skills on hand due to our SAP and Datawarehousing applications (both system and DBA knowledge). We also have a significant amount of MS SQL 6.5 here also though no DBA activities, performance monitoring and tuning is done. Our treatment of each is different due to the relative importance and recoverability of the specific environments. I suppose you could consider MS SQL as the poor relation 'ffffc3'ffffa2'ffffe2'ffff82'ffffac'ffffe2'ffff80'ffff9c it gets very little attention - it is almost treated like MS Acess'ffffc3'ffffa2'ffffe2'ffff82'ffffac'ffffe2'ffff84'ffffa2s big brother. My questions are as follows : 1. For a consolidated data store which has a high dependence on availability and performance (due to call centre an web access) which is the right move 'ffffc3'ffffa2'ffffe2'ffff82'ffffac'ffffe2'ffff80'ffff9c consolidate under MS SQL or Informix ? 2. Which of the two will scale better or is this an issue given low to moderate growth? 3. Is future proofing such an issue for a DB engine ? 4. Relative cost difference ie. ratio if such a thing exists. Choice of platform would be Compaq, NT and SQL vs. IBM RS/600, AIX and Informix ? 5. Which will have the higher maintenance overhead ? Your assistence is greatly appreciated. * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful

> 1. For a consolidated data store which has a high > dependence on availability and performance (due to call > centre an web access) which is the right move consolidate > under MS SQL or Informix ? > 2. Which of the two will scale better or is this an issue > given low to moderate growth? > 3. Is future proofing such an issue for a DB engine ? > 4. Relative cost difference ie. ratio if such a thing > exists. Choice of platform would be Compaq, NT and SQL vs. > IBM RS/600, AIX and Informix ? > 5. Which will have the higher maintenance overhead ? > > Your assistence is greatly appreciated. You wanna us to make your homework ? Seriously, I have some experience of different kinds of web -applications that run on different databases. I would not consider a MS-SQL server for scalability resons in the web environment. Typically in the web the usage grows unexpectedly and NT platform is harder to scale beyond certain point than most of the *nix platforms. I would focus on DB2, Oracle and Informix (listed in random order ;) running on *nix. * Kimmo Sinkko * E-mail kimmo.sinkko@almamedia.fi_nospam * * Alma Media Net Ventures * (remove _nospam from the address) *