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Informix vs. UniVerse?

Posted in 2006

Topics: General Discussion

G man — — source: Usenet: comp.databases.informix

Ok, probably a really stupid question. Is the UniVerse RDBMS and Informix DBS the same thing? Are they related? Are they even close? I always understood they were the same, however, Informix is very new to me. UV on the otherhand, I have worked with for years. The information on the web is rather confusing, sometimes calling it the same thing, but referencing it in completely different structural terms. I'm so confused!!!! Thanks for the help.

↪ replying to G man
Richard Harnden — — source: Usenet: comp.databases.informix

G man wrote: > Ok, probably a really stupid question. > > Is the UniVerse RDBMS and Informix DBS the same thing? Are they related? > Are they even close? No, Informix is an RDBMS; UniVerse is a MV (ie, Pick) > > I always understood they were the same, however, Informix is very new to me. > UV on the otherhand, I have worked with for years. The information on the > web is rather confusing, sometimes calling it the same thing, but > referencing it in completely different structural terms. > > I'm so confused!!!! > > Thanks for the help. > >

↪ replying to G man
Jonathan Leffler — — source: Usenet: comp.databases.informix

G man wrote: > Ok, probably a really stupid question. No, the stupid questions are those that should be asked but aren't. > Is the UniVerse RDBMS and Informix DBS the same thing? Definitely not the same thing. As Richard said, Informix provides RDBMS - relational database management systems (or, SQL DBMS, which are an approximation to RDBMS, depending on how much you've been wallowing in c.d.theory recently). By contrast, UniVerse and Unidata are, indeed, Multi-Value or Pick-based systems. > Are they related? Only by accident. In the days of yore, Informix bought Ardent, which had been formed by the merger of a variety of companies with a variety of DBMS, and the DBMS included O2 and U2 (the latter being the nickname for the two Uni* systems). So, Informix obtained those systems; then IBM took them over when they bought the database business from Informix, which became Ascential, and then the remainder was taken over by IBM. Informix also owned by acquisition a number of other DBMS - Cloudscape (now Apache Derby) and Redbrick being two notable ones. > Are they even close? Not close technically. > I always understood they were the same, however, Informix is very new to me. They are not the same; then never have been. > UV on the otherhand, I have worked with for years. The information on the > web is rather confusing, sometimes calling it the same thing, but > referencing it in completely different structural terms. Well, it's about as confusing trying to sort out what U2 is (are?) from the Informix camp as it evidently is in the opposite direction. It depends on what you want to know - but if you need to know more about U2 and similar systems, look at the comp.databases.theory news group and find Dawn Wolthuis's blog - and postings. If you need to know more about Informix (IDS, XPS, SE), then you'd probably do better hanging around here for a while. > I'm so confused!!!! UniVerse != Informix. There - that wasn't too hard, was it. Good luck in your search for understanding. -- Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h> Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com Guardian of DBD::Informix v2005.02 -- http://dbi.perl.org/