Re: Informix as A Decision Support/Data Warehouse Engine

Peter Nolan <pnolan@ozemail.com.au> writes: >Hi Howard, > right now the market is a bit like this.... >Those places with only blue paint on the boxes, or more recently of late >black, still persist with DB2. But DB2 PE has not made much of a splash >in the market.... >Oracle has the runnaway lead in DW on unix platforms by weight of market >presence. >Informix, in my opinion, actually has the best database technology. >Remember Oracle is later in life cycle than Infomix.....though Oracle is >spending up big on R&D...who knows what might be in 8....any most Oracle >folks would say I'm smoking dope.... >Red Brick has been doing very well in the DW market space...... >If you go Oracle or Informix you won't go too far wrong for a >database.....spend some time on the DB design though.....all databases >run badly on a badly designed database...If you choose to go star-schema >take a look at RedBrick... >Thanks >Peter.... >Howard Levine wrote: >> >> We are considering licensing Informix at my company. I am curious about >> experiences others have had using Informix as the database engine for a >> Decision Support System / Data Warehouse. Has it worked well? or poorly? >> Are there any products that you recommend be either used or avoided in >> conjunction with the database - either from Informix or third parties? >> >> We would be using an Ultrix 4000 running Solaris 2.5. We would also be >> using the latest release of Informix Online. We anticipate having to keep >> using the latest releases of Informix Online in order to get the latest >> Data Warehousing features. >> >> Any insights or ideas? Do you think Informix Online is a good solution? At last month's big Financial Technology Expo conference in New York, there were two presentations on Informix data warehouses. Both insurance company installations were reported to be highly successful. One was a major German insurance company running an Informix data warehouse on a Sequent, with coupling to an IBM mainframe, and also to an IBM RS/6000. Since the insurance company is primarily 'blue", they are running OS/2 on the desktops. The insurance company had initially been concerned that the Sequent would end up being a UNIX "island", but the Sequent/Mainframe integration turned out to be highly successful. The German insurance company is continuing to grow its data warehouse rapidly. Mike Willett Storage Computer http://www.storage.com/ http://www.storage.com/germany.html