Sybase versus Informix

Ok - I know someone who is considering moving from an Informix job to a Sybase job i.e changing employers. The level is 1 years experience as DBA. Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? Also how difficult is it to move from an Informix environment to a Sybase one ? pitfalls etc What IYHO opiion is the better Engine, has the best tools etc ? I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in the Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the closest rival to Oracle, obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am ) dying slowly. Please note , I don't want this to turn into a slanging match etc and I'm not lighting the fuse here, I just want a reasonable discussion and some reasonable conclusions. Thanks in advance. Ding ding.....Round 1. "The only reason for tradition is tradition itself"

I am a programmer. One thing I have noticed is that Sybase does not support ESQL/C (Informix, Oracle, and Ingres does). Sybase has it's own CTlib or others to program with C or C++. You can learn it in serveral hours. Qintao Zhao Robert Taylor wrote: > Ok - I know someone who is considering moving from an Informix job to a > Sybase job i.e changing employers. The level is 1 years experience as DBA. > > Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? > Also how difficult is it to move from an Informix environment to a Sybase > one ? pitfalls etc > What IYHO opiion is the better Engine, has the best tools etc ? > > I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in the > Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the closest rival to > Oracle, obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am ) > dying slowly. > > Please note , I don't want this to turn into a slanging match etc and I'm > not lighting the fuse here, I just want a reasonable discussion and some > reasonable conclusions. Thanks in advance. > > Ding ding.....Round 1. > > "The only reason for tradition is tradition itself"

Qintao Zhao, Sybase supports ESQL/C and ESQL/COBOL. Qintao Zhao wrote: > > I am a programmer. One thing I have noticed is that Sybase does not support > ESQL/C (Informix, Oracle, and Ingres does). Sybase has it's own CTlib or others > > to program with C or C++. You can learn it in serveral hours. > > Qintao Zhao > > Robert Taylor wrote: > > > Ok - I know someone who is considering moving from an Informix job to a > > Sybase job i.e changing employers. The level is 1 years experience as DBA. > > > > Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? > > Also how difficult is it to move from an Informix environment to a Sybase > > one ? pitfalls etc > > What IYHO opiion is the better Engine, has the best tools etc ? > > > > I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in the > > Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the closest rival to > > Oracle, obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am ) > > dying slowly. > > > > Please note , I don't want this to turn into a slanging match etc and I'm > > not lighting the fuse here, I just want a reasonable discussion and some > > reasonable conclusions. Thanks in advance. > > > > Ding ding.....Round 1. > > > > "The only reason for tradition is tradition itself"

Sybase came out with ESQL/C, kicking and screaming and making the first release brain dead in an unsuccessful apparent attempt to disuage users from buying it, in 1990. They push VERY HARD to have all users using their DB-Lib (read CLI/ODBC) API instead, but they do have ESQL/C. Art S. Kagel Qintao Zhao wrote: > > I am a programmer. One thing I have noticed is that Sybase does not support > ESQL/C (Informix, Oracle, and Ingres does). Sybase has it's own CTlib or others > > to program with C or C++. You can learn it in serveral hours. > > Qintao Zhao > > Robert Taylor wrote: > > > Ok - I know someone who is considering moving from an Informix job to a > > Sybase job i.e changing employers. The level is 1 years experience as DBA. > > > > Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? > > Also how difficult is it to move from an Informix environment to a Sybase > > one ? pitfalls etc > > What IYHO opiion is the better Engine, has the best tools etc ? > > > > I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in the > > Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the closest rival to > > Oracle, obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am ) > > dying slowly. > > > > Please note , I don't want this to turn into a slanging match etc and I'm > > not lighting the fuse here, I just want a reasonable discussion and some > > reasonable conclusions. Thanks in advance. > > > > Ding ding.....Round 1. > > > > "The only reason for tradition is tradition itself"

Thanks, Nice to know. At Sybase website, I found Sybase esqlc document. It is about ctlib. The syntax of ctlib is totally different from Informix, Oracle and Ingres's esqlc which needs translations(esql, proc, esqlc) to run. Do you refer to Sybase's esqlc as ctlib or else. Can I get more information? Rumy Driver wrote: > Qintao Zhao, > > Sybase supports ESQL/C and ESQL/COBOL. > > Qintao Zhao wrote: > > > > I am a programmer. One thing I have noticed is that Sybase does not support > > ESQL/C (Informix, Oracle, and Ingres does). Sybase has it's own CTlib or others > > > > to program with C or C++. You can learn it in serveral hours. > > > > Qintao Zhao > > > > Robert Taylor wrote: > > > > > Ok - I know someone who is considering moving from an Informix job to a > > > Sybase job i.e changing employers. The level is 1 years experience as DBA. > > > > > > Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? > > > Also how difficult is it to move from an Informix environment to a Sybase > > > one ? pitfalls etc > > > What IYHO opiion is the better Engine, has the best tools etc ? > > > > > > I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in the > > > Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the closest rival to > > > Oracle, obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am ) > > > dying slowly. > > > > > > Please note , I don't want this to turn into a slanging match etc and I'm > > > not lighting the fuse here, I just want a reasonable discussion and some > > > reasonable conclusions. Thanks in advance. > > > > > > Ding ding.....Round 1. > > > > > > "The only reason for tradition is tradition itself"

Robert Taylor wrote: > Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? Its pointless asking that sort of question. You might as well ask what sort of car is better? As usual, it depends on the task. > Also how difficult is it to move from an Informix environment to a Sybase > one ? pitfalls etc > What IYHO opiion is the better Engine, has the best tools etc ? That question is even more difficult to answer. You'd find very few people who work with both. > I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in the > Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the closest rival to > Oracle, I thought it was Oracle and DB2. Sybase and Oracle are poles apart in methodology. > obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am ) > dying slowly. That would depend on a number of factors like whether the user base is shrinking, market share etc. I thought that Informix was a large vendor. -am

I'm sorry that you feel you have to answer in a smart arsed and dismissive manner. I have offered answers on this group when I've felt that I just might be able to help and wouldn't cosnider responding in a fashion that makes someone elses query seem so unimportant. Next time don't bother.

I believe your original post seemed to indicate the fighting should commence recall "Ding ding.....Round 1." What kind of comments are you expecting when you post a message in the Informix newsgroup that states: "obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am )dying slowly.", exspecially when you are comparing it to Sysbase. I also hope that when you offered answers to this newsgroup on occasion that your "answers" were based on fact and not on uninformed conjecture. Greg Robert Taylor wrote: > I'm sorry that you feel you have to answer in a smart arsed and dismissive > manner. I have offered answers on this group when I've felt that I just > might be able to help and wouldn't cosnider responding in a fashion that > makes someone elses query seem so unimportant. > > Next time don't bother.

CREATE sesnse_of_humour(); ERROR "sense_of_humour" = NOTFOUND;

Can I make it clear that my comments weren't aimed at the group as a whole , I've had many useful comments so far, some sent to my personal address. Many thanks for those. I was pissed off at comments made by Greg & Anthony specifically and thats what generated my response. Opinions on Informix & Sybase are important to me and I was asking for help, the point I was making was that if people thought it was a stupid question or a waste of time then fine, don't reply. If you do feel like replying then thanks. Hope this makes everything clear.

Robert Taylor wrote: > > I'm sorry that you feel you have to answer in a smart arsed and dismissive > manner. I have offered answers on this group when I've felt that I just > might be able to help and wouldn't cosnider responding in a fashion that > makes someone elses query seem so unimportant. I don't really see what bothers you in Anthony's remarks. I agree with him that a generic question like "which database is better" is really impossible to answer. It depends too much on the specific tasks, the type of environment and the resources that you have available. As for the tools, that's also a lot a question of taste. I can't stand ESQL/C, personnaly - I much prefer direct API function calls (which was one reason why I chose Sybase over Oracle back in 1989...) Michael -- Michael Peppler -||- Data Migrations Inc. mpeppler@peppler.org -||- http://www.mbay.net/~mpeppler Int. Sybase User Group -||- http://www.isug.com Sybase on Linux mailing list: ase-linux-list@isug.com

"Robert Taylor" <robertt@scotlegal.com> wrote: > Ok - I know someone who is considering moving from an Informix job to > a Sybase job > Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? Its a very general question but to start with one should look at these while choosing a software/hardware platform: 1)Budgets 2)How big is the system in terms of users, data (giga/tera bytes) 3)What hardware you would choose 4)Type of application - DSS, OLTP, Dataware house 5)Performance that is acceptable 6)Skills set within the company: People with improper skills cause disasters over best platforms Informix is suitable for data warehouses and as most of the users like this concept: it has been supporting row level locks. Have never got a change to work on Informix. Sybase is good for OLTP and DSS apps depends again on the type of application. It is very easy to use and has got all the features that one can think of - CIS, parallelism, row level locks, entire database dump/load etc. Now ASE 12.0 would support HA clustering along JVM etc. Most of the documentation is easy to understand even for a beginner. It can handle data upto certain gigabytes and as far as I know there is no documented case of Sybase handling Terabytes so far. > I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in > the Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the > closest rival to Oracle, obviously Informix appears to be at the > moment ( from where I am ) dying slowly. Marketing details!!! Personal opinion: Sybase was certainly a threat to Oracle few years back but now they have different market segmentation. Their clients are different. Sybase is used in financial, telecoms industry, Informix in data warehouses and Oracle elsewhere. Look at annual reports of all these companies to get an idea about historical performances - stock, net profits, EPS. Such discussions are very general and can be really endless! Cheers, Arun Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

> I don't really see what bothers you in Anthony's remarks. I agree with him that > a generic question like "which database is better" is really impossible to > answer. It depends too much on the specific tasks, the type of environment > and the resources that you have available. This is about the 5th time I have heard this. Exactly WHEN did I say which database is better ? If I did I apologise for my stupidity but I think that its only fair that If I didn't actually ask that question then you admit yours. I asked what were the merits of Informix over Sybase and versa. Think about it , its not the same. I was asking in which situations would a particular database come out top. For example SYabse is fine for a small system with few Users but Informix beats the balls off it when you up the stakes ( Obviously I'm making this up , I couldn't possibly know if its true , its why I asked in the 1st place ). That kind of thing.

In article <7u4kl9$9og$1@neptunium.btinternet.com>, "Robert Taylor" <robertt@scotlegal.com> wrote: > Ok - I know someone who is considering moving from an Informix job to a > Sybase job i.e changing employers. The level is 1 years experience as DBA. > > Whats the merits of Sybase over Informix and vice versa ? > Also how difficult is it to move from an Informix environment to a Sybase > one ? pitfalls etc > What IYHO opiion is the better Engine, has the best tools etc ? > I moved from Informix to Oracle 10 years ago. No big deal. At the time Informix had much superior tools (eg, ACE report writer), but Sybase beat anything else out there for performance. Sybase is still not known for its tools. The one Informix feature I miss is the serial datatype. Identity just doesn't do it (and wasn't introduced for 6 more years.) The Sybase implementation of triggers is different, and more flexible than anything else I've seen, and tempdb is not only convenient, it's unique. Usually it's easy to port Informix or Oracle applications to Sybase, but not the other way around. Sybase performance for data-warehousing applications and OLTP is sometimes faulted vis-a-vis other products, but I have found this is generally from a misuse of the product, or due to application design from an inappropriate paradigm. I once came into a contract where the hardware vendor was pushing Oracle, and indeed performance on the Sybase system was slow: it took half an hour to add a new client. (Inept use of constraints.) In a week I had it down to 10 seconds by using the proper indexes. (There were many other such problems to fix, not all so trivial.) Sybase Consulting (not the Sybase product) was partially responsible, but so was the typical MIS structure that separates DBA functions from application development. > I have downloaded the Sybase-Faq and it seems to cover most topics in the > Job description he has. He has been told that Sybase is the closest rival to > Oracle, obviously Informix appears to be at the moment ( from where I am ) > dying slowly. Informix has been dying slowly for over ten years. I'm surprised it's not dead yet. Ingres died. Oracle is inelegant but has great marketing. Sybase has a great future behind it. So what else is new? > > Please note , I don't want this to turn into a slanging match etc and I'm > not lighting the fuse here, I just want a reasonable discussion and some > reasonable conclusions. Thanks in advance. > > Ding ding.....Round 1. > > "The only reason for tradition is tradition itself" > > Richard Kaufman Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.