Re: Advice on Informix/Oracle switch

Willis >>1. What are the Oracle equivalents of the following Informix products which we use? Informix SE -> Oracle 7 (both use cooked filesystems to store data, AFAIK). Informix 4GL -> no equivalent, AFAIK Informix SQL -> sql*plus and pl/sql for stored procedures Informix ESQL/C -> pro*c >>2. How stable is the corresponding Oracle database engine compared to Informix? Both are stable. >>3. Does the corresponding Oracle database engine require more systems administration? (SE administration is minimal, which is great for a 3 person shop) OOOOOOH, YES! >>4. We have been told there are tools which convert Informix code to Oracle. Do they >>really work, or would we be better recoding everything from scratch? All of our data entry >>software is written in 4GL, and our communication software with remote systems is in >>ESQL/C. We were told the same thing when we decided to convert our application to support Informix only to Informix + Oracle database at a previous client. We never saw the conversion tool. To be fair to Oracle though, we did not go through with the conversion finally, since the conversion plan was dropped. My take was that you would be better of recoding, since on questioning the Oracle rep on the conversion tool in more detail, it came out that conversion was not 100% and some (unspecified and unquantified, the Oracle rep pleaded ignorance) manual actions would need to be carried out to make the conversion complete. >>5. What advice can you give us on training, etc. for this conversion effort. I suppose you would need to be trained in Oracle DBA functions, and I guess Oracle would be happy to give you their training brochure. HTH Sujit Willis Gregory <tacedi@series2000.com> on 05/11/2000 06:34:15 AM To: informix-list@iiug.org cc: Subject: Advice on Informix/Oracle switch We've been using Informix since 1986 and are VERY happy with it. Unfortunately, we've recently come under a new organization which has mandated that we switch from our current HP/Informix environment to their Sun/Oracle environment. We're NOT happy about it, but have no choice. Does anyone have experience with both Informix and Oracle who can answer the following questions for me: 1. What are the Oracle equivalents of the following Informix products which we use? Informix SE Informix 4GL Informix SQL Informix ESQL/C 2. How stable is the corresponding Oracle database engine compared to Informix? 3. Does the corresponding Oracle database engine require more systems administration? (SE administration is minimal, which is great for a 3 person shop) 4. We have been told there are tools which convert Informix code to Oracle. Do they really work, or would we be better recoding everything from scratch? All of our data entry software is written in 4GL, and our communication software with remote systems is in ESQL/C. 5. What advice can you give us on training, etc. for this conversion effort. Thanks. Willis Gregory