Re: DBMS matrix

In Article<4ebkr0$m8b@cssun.mathcs.emory.edu>, <jparker@hpbs3645.boi.hp.com> writes: > Back in October of 1993 an attempt at a matrix comparing Oracle/Informix/Sybase > and Ingres was done. Has anybody taken a look at it since then? On the > Informix side at least it's still taliing about 5.0 > > cheers > j. If you are wondering how Informix On-Line Version 7.x compares, stick with 5.x My company has been in the process of porting a suite of applications (over 2,000,000 lines of 4GL/ESQL-C) from Informix 5.x to 7.x for over a year. The first sticking point is a side effect of several fatal differences between the Version 4.x and 6.x tools. This caused recoding of near 500 4GL applications. The second, and most irritating problem is that version 7.x is 20% slower than version 5.x on the same machine. This is true for both single processor and SMP platforms. At first we were quite shocked since every report we had read indicated 7.x was at least 50% faster than 5.x. After considerable research we discovered that the reported performance gains came from the fact the Informix finally fixed the query optimizer. Nearly every Informix application will eventually fall into the sequential search pit of 5.x if not religiously retuned on a regular basis. Many users of 5.x never realized that they were getting only a fraction of the expected performance from their 5.x applications. It is easy to believe that the slow down is related to database growth. The optimizer fix of 7.x made those applications apparently run faster without any changes. Unformtunately, they will run 20% slower than they will under 5.x if you take the time to fiddle with the SQL statements. If you are running version 5.x and have hand optimized them, do not upgrade to version 7.x. If you are contemplating a new project, then buy version 7.x and increase your budget for a faster CPU.