LinkedIn discussion

Friends: I just posted a new topic to the LinkedIn Database Developers and Architects group (DDAG) along with a first post. I invite the entire Informix User community to join the discussion. State why you love IDS, why others would love it if they had the chance to use it, what IDS's best old and new features are for your environment. Engage any outsiders in fundamental discussion about the pros and cons of the various products we and they use and lets build a broader understanding of IDS and what it can do for users. Join LinedIn and join DDAG, link to me (and mention Informix in your link message if I might not recognize your IDS) and I'll link back. I beg you all, no IBM bashing please. If we have to air out our dirty laundry, let's do it in our own back yard! This is not Blue Kool-Aid Quaffing, it's IDS Formula I sitting to me. Here's what I wrote: Should the RDBMS user community take a new look at IBM's Informix Dynamic Server? Obviously I think the answer is "Yes!". Post:Informix Dynamic Server (or IDS) version 9.30 was Informix Software's Enterprise Class RDBMS with significant and market leading Object Relational and extensibility features and performance in 2001 when IBM bought the product line and the name. Many of us thought that this buyout spelled the death knell of our favorite database system and there's an open debate in the Informix user community about just how close we came to that reality. However, over the past eight plus years, IBM has, in fact, continued to improve the IDS server adding features and improving performance significantly. The current release is 11.50xC6 with the next release on the verge of entering beta tests. The purpose of this discussion is to open the floor to the Informix user community to discuss our favorite RDBMS with our less fortunate colleagues in the greater database community and to this forum in general to listen and discover IDS, yes, but also to join in and comment and question and thereby increase the understanding of the entire community. To kick this off, let me open the discussion this way... Some have said that IDS is a dead end product that will never rise again. I have to disagree. IDS is still strong in the marketplace in places you would never expect if you do not already know. Examples: Most of the largest retailers in the US and Europe use IDS Most of the largest supermarket chains in the world use IDS Every credit card transaction for one of the big three card vendors in the world is processed through an IDS database. Most long distance traffic in the US is routed by Informix databases Most of the largest private PBX systems in the US are managed by Informix databases The US Nationwide 911 Emergency response system records all traffic in an Informix database Most of the online gaming industry is using Informix databases The State Courts of several US states use Informix databases I could go on, but most of the major RDBMS systems can make similar claims and that's not the point here. The point is that the product is not dead and IBM knows it. IBM has been supporting us these eight+ years and has continued to improve the product to continue to keep up with the industry and in many ways and in specific features to lead the industry. Because if the way IBM has always marketed software (or hasn't done so) no one outside of the Informix User Community seems to be aware of this. Hopefully someone else will join this discussion and submit a specific topic or feature for discussion, or we can continue to talk on the subject of IDS's stealthy position in the market. Or I may just continue the monologue myself in a few days. **Art Art S. Kagel Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com) IIUG Board of Directors (art@iiug.org) See you at the 2010 IIUG Informix Conference April 25-28, 2010 Overland Park (Kansas City), KS www.iiug.org/conf Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any other organization with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or by inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the entities themselves.