Re: Changing from Informix to Oracle

From: Boscia <rwboscia@worldnet.att.net> > >I work at a large company with a corporate headquarters that tries to tell >us what to do.... > >Well, we use Informix for all but one of our databases. We use Oracle for >the one. > >Corporate is suggesting that we switch all our databases to Oracle. >Corporate got some fantastic price deal and pays for it on the corporate >level and each individual location does not have to pay for any Oracle >software or support. We pay over $150K for our Informix apps at our >location only, so of course this looks good to some. > >Can anyone tell me if we go this route, how hard is it to convert? >And if you can give me any ammunition to use to convince why or why not... > >We have many & quite large databases now - with one of the tables having >over 115 million rows. Right now we are getting slow writes when we select >and write into temp tables and everyone is claiming Informix is causing >the >slowness and if we had Oracle, it would not do that. >(I feel Informix is causing the slowness & I am in the process of >"tweaking" >, but I don't know enough about Oracle to know how they do their select >statements and temp tables....or their disks or for that matter anything at >all.....) Well, it's generally quite a painful experience to migrate from anything to anything else. I have to grit my teeth as I say this, but I would generally not even advise Oracle-istas to migrate to Informix without some very good reasons. (My usual reasons when looking at a new database don't count.) Apart from that, though, I think it's complete twaddle to say Oracle would do one thing better than Informix, and therefore you should move. And I also think it's complete BS that Oracle doesn't have the same sort of problems as Informix. If it doesn't have Informix problem A, it will certainly have equally upsetting problem B. TANSTAAFL. Perhaps you could also point out the minor training costs and the amount of lost productivity during and in the months after the implementation. And the cost of recruiting Oracle DBAs. Perhaps it's not looking so cost effective any more? Have you considered getting a consultant in to look at your database? I'm not knocking you, but often you get so wrapped up in a problem, you can't see the wood for the trees. I do, anyway. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com