Re: An interesting meeting with IBM

Data Goob wrote: > ( Andrew great job on the meeting and information etc! ) > > Andy, That's Andrew... ;-) > > Have you actually used Oracle or MSSQL or DB2 in a > production environment? > > Do you understand or know anything about the > architectural differences in these products? > > Do you understand or know anything about how > these products compare to Informix? One of the departments I'm closely associated with has installed about 8 (?) Oracle sites - the sites were already Oracle shops, and we used 4JS to allow our 4GL code to work with them. Also, this department bought a competitor around about Y2K because the competitor was struggling to achieve Y2K compliance, and also because it was an easy way to buy a number of customers. Many of these customers converted to Informix, some stayed on Oracle because of other software they have. Within the bought-out competitor were some very experienced Oracle admins, and they of course install and maintain the sites. Personally I've barely even fired up the sqlplus program to issue any SQL's. I know that if I want to put in the effort to get familiar with Oracle I only need to ask for a disk and then pick their brains. They are always on the job administering the sites, and they have written a bunch of monitoring scripts that provide alerts and web pages with graphs, numbers and green/red light icons. The Informix sites do not need this. Oracle's locking mechanism is very interesting and very noble. It strives to make all changes invisible to other users - it strives to always present the database AS IF it was unchanged since the moment your (implicit) transaction starts. Associated with this is a monster they call the REDO and UNDO (?) logs. Also, I think I could probably come up with a scenario where another user gets an "inconsistent" snapshot of the database... I have a theory, but would need an engine to test it. If my theory is correct, then Oracle's locking mechanism is doomed anyway. Maybe they've outsmarted my theory long ago. One of the Oracle experts from the team has conceded that "on the same hardware, Informix seems to be about twice as fast", and he accepted this with good grace indeed. Prior to actual deployment, both sides were sure that the other side would go down in the 1st round once the bell rang. Informix won :-) As for SQL, when we started to use 4JS to connect to Oracle, we found that Oracle was quite thin on the ground with data types, and there was a bit of a hassle with that. Fortunately most of our non-compliant types were fixable. I don't know if Oracle has added more datatypes in the last two years. If they have it would make it easier for them to steal customers from other engines. Years ago (15?) I used a database called Watcom on Windows 2, and it was great fun although it had a really wierd syntax for outer join. When I heard that MS SQL was a decendant of Watcom via Sybase, I got a really warm fuzzy affectionate feeling. But I'm concerned about scalability, and I'm especially concerned about running any software on something as dodgy as a Windows server. I've read reports that MS doesn't do large databases very well. Not sure how accurate or timely that still is. I've installed it on my PC and got it running after a bit of a fight. I've also picked up a very good techies book from Microsoft press called "SQL Server 7.0 Performance Tuning Technical Reference" - my local bookshop has monthly bargain bins and I found it for about $15 - worth snatching up it was. The first few chapters go into the architecture, and it has some groovy ideas and architecture. That book is also an excellent tutorial and reference, so I'd recommend it. Generally Microsoft press does produce copious and high quality material. They'd have to for the price ... Once again, the MS sites we have (just a few) are maintained by other people. In fact, for the MS sites, civica staff does not get involved apart from the installation. After that the sites use their own staff. In our local mall, there's one of those toy machines with the claw and the joystick, but it's filled with the MCSE's that are being churned out from colleges and universities. The customers go down there with a handful of coins and feed them in until they catch an MCSE by the foot and drop him/her down the chute. DB/2 has not been used by the 4GL teams I'm associated with, but this particular sub-company of Civica has used DB/2 in another department. They are still using DB/2, CICS (whatever that is) and COBOL. And they are loving it, the old codgers.... If we wanted to use DB/2 they could certainly give us assistance. So far, our 4GL teams have not had any pressure to supply on DB/2. However, since we have adapted for Oracle, then MS, DB/2 is the next logical choice, and no doubt will be easier because the work with 4JS for each engine becomes progressively simpler since we've probably dealt with the issue already. [cue posting from Querix] Sorry I can't be more informative than that.

The questions were for Andy Kent. ;-) But I appreciate your answers Andrew. I'll be back after Andy ( not Andrew ) gets a chance to reply. ( Dizzy now... Sleepy.... real sleepy... ) "Andrew Hamm" <ahamm@mail.com> wrote in message news:c52g86$2o5vjj$1@ID-79573.news.uni-berlin.de... > Data Goob wrote: > > ( Andrew great job on the meeting and information etc! ) > > > > Andy, > That's Andrew... ;-) > > > > Have you actually used Oracle or MSSQL or DB2 in a > > production environment? > > > > Do you understand or know anything about the > > architectural differences in these products? > > > > Do you understand or know anything about how > > these products compare to Informix? > > One of the departments I'm closely associated with has installed about 8 (?) > Oracle sites - the sites were already Oracle shops, and we used 4JS to allow > our 4GL code to work with them. Also, this department bought a competitor > around about Y2K because the competitor was struggling to achieve Y2K > compliance, and also because it was an easy way to buy a number of > customers. Many of these customers converted to Informix, some stayed on > Oracle because of other software they have. > > Within the bought-out competitor were some very experienced Oracle admins, > and they of course install and maintain the sites. Personally I've barely > even fired up the sqlplus program to issue any SQL's. I know that if I want > to put in the effort to get familiar with Oracle I only need to ask for a > disk and then pick their brains. > > They are always on the job administering the sites, and they have written a > bunch of monitoring scripts that provide alerts and web pages with graphs, > numbers and green/red light icons. The Informix sites do not need this. > > Oracle's locking mechanism is very interesting and very noble. It strives to > make all changes invisible to other users - it strives to always present the > database AS IF it was unchanged since the moment your (implicit) transaction > starts. Associated with this is a monster they call the REDO and UNDO (?) > logs. Also, I think I could probably come up with a scenario where another > user gets an "inconsistent" snapshot of the database... I have a theory, but > would need an engine to test it. If my theory is correct, then Oracle's > locking mechanism is doomed anyway. Maybe they've outsmarted my theory long > ago. > > One of the Oracle experts from the team has conceded that "on the same > hardware, Informix seems to be about twice as fast", and he accepted this > with good grace indeed. Prior to actual deployment, both sides were sure > that the other side would go down in the 1st round once the bell rang. > Informix won :-) > > As for SQL, when we started to use 4JS to connect to Oracle, we found that > Oracle was quite thin on the ground with data types, and there was a bit of > a hassle with that. Fortunately most of our non-compliant types were > fixable. I don't know if Oracle has added more datatypes in the last two > years. If they have it would make it easier for them to steal customers from > other engines. > > Years ago (15?) I used a database called Watcom on Windows 2, and it was > great fun although it had a really wierd syntax for outer join. When I heard > that MS SQL was a decendant of Watcom via Sybase, I got a really warm fuzzy > affectionate feeling. But I'm concerned about scalability, and I'm > especially concerned about running any software on something as dodgy as a > Windows server. I've read reports that MS doesn't do large databases very > well. Not sure how accurate or timely that still is. > > I've installed it on my PC and got it running after a bit of a fight. I've > also picked up a very good techies book from Microsoft press called "SQL > Server 7.0 Performance Tuning Technical Reference" - my local bookshop has > monthly bargain bins and I found it for about $15 - worth snatching up it > was. The first few chapters go into the architecture, and it has some groovy > ideas and architecture. That book is also an excellent tutorial and > reference, so I'd recommend it. Generally Microsoft press does produce > copious and high quality material. They'd have to for the price ... > > Once again, the MS sites we have (just a few) are maintained by other > people. In fact, for the MS sites, civica staff does not get involved apart > from the installation. After that the sites use their own staff. In our > local mall, there's one of those toy machines with the claw and the > joystick, but it's filled with the MCSE's that are being churned out from > colleges and universities. The customers go down there with a handful of > coins and feed them in until they catch an MCSE by the foot and drop him/her > down the chute. > > DB/2 has not been used by the 4GL teams I'm associated with, but this > particular sub-company of Civica has used DB/2 in another department. They > are still using DB/2, CICS (whatever that is) and COBOL. And they are loving > it, the old codgers.... If we wanted to use DB/2 they could certainly give > us assistance. So far, our 4GL teams have not had any pressure to supply on > DB/2. However, since we have adapted for Oracle, then MS, DB/2 is the next > logical choice, and no doubt will be easier because the work with 4JS for > each engine becomes progressively simpler since we've probably dealt with > the issue already. [cue posting from Querix] > > Sorry I can't be more informative than that. > >

Data Goob wrote: > The questions were for Andy Kent. > > ;-) > > But I appreciate your answers Andrew. > > I'll be back after Andy ( not Andrew ) gets a chance to reply. > > ( Dizzy now... Sleepy.... real sleepy... ) OK - didn't notice that. I've taken the liberty of renaming the subject. Andy, did ya catch that?