IDS vs Oracle , SQL Server
A user running IDS 11.70 on HP Itanium asked for technical comparison material (locking, scalability, manageability) to add Informix to an existing Oracle vs SQL Server evaluation report. No single document was produced, but respondents suggested: focus on the application's actual requirements rather than feature checklists (noting Informix's in-memory row locks vs Oracle's on-disk approach), read the vendors' own migration guides and manuals, involve an IBM sales rep, and consult IBM's analyst/ITG comparison reports on the Informix library page. Several also warned that Itanium itself was a dying platform (HP support ending ~2016, Oracle's porting dispute), so the hardware choice mattered too.
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IDS 11.7Fc7 HP- Itanium Good day All, Our company is in the process of evaluating Oracle, Informix and SQL Server. We are currently running IDS 11.7FC7. The general feeling is in favour of Oracle and some people prefer SQL Server. A report featuring Oracle and SQL Server has been compiled and I now have to include Informix on this report. The report is at a very technical level comparing things such as record locking, scaling, easy to manage, etc I am looking for information, evaluations or comparisons between Informix 11.7 or 12.1 versus Oracle and SQL Server. I will appreciate it if anyone can help me with such information. Thanks
Hi, Good to see that Informix is still in the competition :) Are there any technical reasons driving the possible move? This is a complicated subject and it would be good to have others' input here. I am assuming in the answer that you have an application using your current Informix system. I'm not sure if your stuck with the feature by feature comparison here in attempt to find out which RDBMS is "best". One key question in any migration has to be "what are the requirements of our application?" Taking the example of locking, both Informix and Oracle have row-level locking but they are implemented very differently. Informix's mechanism is to have a in-memory list of locks and is (probably) faster for an OLTP system. Oracle writes out the id of the transaction holding the lock to disk. However, this does allow your transactions to hold a lot more locks efficiently. Other systems may employ lock escalation techniques. The point is that differences in how these systems operate are quite complicated and may affect your application design. One good way to get into the nitty gritty and technical differences is to read some the migration guides produced by IBM, Oracle and Microsoft designed to help you move to their platform. Other than that the obvious thing to do is to read the user documentation from each vendor which should explain how their system works in a given area. Ben.
Really, an IBM sales rep should be helping you with this. Where are you based? >> IDS 11.7Fc7 HP- Itanium Is Oracle still supported on Itanic?
Being supported doesn't mean it has a future... On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 7:42 PM, NEIL TRUBY <neil.truby@ardenta.com> wrote: > Really, an IBM sales rep should be helping you with this. Where are you > based? > > >> IDS 11.7Fc7 HP- Itanium > > Is Oracle still supported on Itanic? > > > > ******************************************************************************* > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum. > > -- Fernando Nunes Portugal http://informix-technology.blogspot.com My email works... but I don't check it frequently... --bcaec51d25b478f68a04f3cda335
Oracle did drop a bombshell a couple of years ago and said it was not porting new versions of the db to Itanium. I've since read that some court injunctions did force them to reverse this policy for a while, but I do not know if this is still the case. Either way, if the original poster chooses Oracle, they should abandon Itanic. No marriage ever worked by coercion (and I've been married for 23 years!).
HP is committed to selling Itanium machines only until the end of 2015 and supporting them only until the end of 2016, so, yes, this is a dead platform. Art Art S. Kagel, Principal Consultant ASK Database Management Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/ Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and do not reflect on 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. On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 3:45 PM, NEIL TRUBY <neil.truby@ardenta.com> wrote: > Oracle did drop a bombshell a couple of years ago and said it was not > porting > new versions of the db to Itanium. I've since read that some court > injunctions > did force them to reverse this policy for a while, but I do not know if > this > is still the case. > > Either way, if the original poster chooses Oracle, they should abandon > Itanic. > No marriage ever worked by coercion (and I've been married for 23 years!). > > > > ******************************************************************************* > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum. > > --089e0160b61825ee7504f3ce120c
Hello! A nice (a little old doc, but always nice) is ITG report, that compares SQL Server vs Informix. https://www.ibm.com/services/forms/signup.do?source=sw-infomgt&S_PKG=infmx-forre ster-ap There are also lots of materials, comparing our best technologies/features to other engines... you may see some of them in the official Informix product family page: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/informix/library.html#Analyst%20reports Hope it helps.... if you need something specific, just ask us ok? Regards. Alexandre Marini IBM Informix Certified Professional v10 / v11.50 / v11.70 / v12.10 IBM Information Management Informix Technical Professional IBM Infosphere DataStage Technical Professional Informix Senior DBA - Orizon Brasil BRIUG website administrator Informix independent consultant > To: ids@iiug.org > From: benjamin.thompson@bskyb.com > Subject: Re: IDS vs Oracle , SQL Server [32623] > Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2014 12:05:48 -0500 > > Hi, > > Good to see that Informix is still in the competition :) Are there any > technical reasons driving the possible move? > > This is a complicated subject and it would be good to have others' input here. > I am assuming in the answer that you have an application using your current > Informix system. > > I'm not sure if your stuck with the feature by feature comparison here in > attempt to find out which RDBMS is "best". One key question in any migration > has to be "what are the requirements of our application?" > > Taking the example of locking, both Informix and Oracle have row-level locking > but they are implemented very differently. Informix's mechanism is to have a > in-memory list of locks and is (probably) faster for an OLTP system. Oracle > writes out the id of the transaction holding the lock to disk. However, this > does allow your transactions to hold a lot more locks efficiently. Other > systems may employ lock escalation techniques. The point is that differences > in how these systems operate are quite complicated and may affect your > application design. > > One good way to get into the nitty gritty and technical differences is to read > some the migration guides produced by IBM, Oracle and Microsoft designed to > help you move to their platform. Other than that the obvious thing to do is to > read the user documentation from each vendor which should explain how their > system works in a given area. > > Ben. > > > ******************************************************************************* > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum. >