Re: No future for DB2

Noons wrote: > Data Goob wrote: > >>flames. They opted to buy the racing team with their marketing budget, instead >>of promoting any of their products. The racing team really helped get the > > > Oh puh-leaze: the ONLY reason IBM bought Informix > was that it was a cheap way of buying another 5 or so % > points in the db size of user base race so they could > claim to be ahead of Oracle! > > They NEVER had any plan to do anything else with Informix > other than improperly claiming their share of the market > as DB2's or IBm's. > > And that's a fact. > Actually there were two main reasons for IBM purchasing Informix's database assets: 1- Increased RDBMS market share numbers to snub Oracle was certainly a motive. 2- Informix's clustered server version, IDS 8.x, uses a similar architecture to DB2 but is more parallel and is multithreaded. IBM wanted to see if a merger of technologies could create a better DB2. And, yes, they originally hoped to entice all of Informixdom to switch to DB2 from IDS. However, several things have happened in the intervening four years: 1- IBM has come to realize that the technology differences internally between IDS 8 and DB2 were too great for such a product merger and since DB2 does the cluster thing very well already, IBM decided to just orphan IDS 8.xx and drop the idea of a tech merged product. 2- Informix users refused for the most part to switch to DB2. 3- Rumors I have reason to believe indicate that Informix IDS 9.xx has been selling at least as many new licenses as DB2 on LUW despite sales people who knew nothing about the product until recently, implicit orders to switch customers asking for IDS to DB2, and a continuation of Informix's advertising and marketing strategies for IDS (ie non-existent). 4- Informix IDS 9.xx servers outperform DB2 anytime a customer or potential customer bothers to benchmark both together. (I'd be interested in hearing from people whose experience is different from those who have shared with me to date. So far I have no examples to contradict this contention.) The result of this: 1- The IDS development budget is larger today than it was when Informix owned the product. 2- I firmly believe that IBM will be posting IDS TPC-C and maybe TPC-H benchmarks before the end of the year. 3- IBM has begun to mention IDS (yes and Cloudscape) in just about every advertisement about database systems right along side DB2. 4- IBM sales people are getting the word that it's OK to sell IDS to new and existing customers and the pressure to switch is abating rapidly. 5- Informix's ESQL/C in the latest release of Client SDK can compile applications that can communicate equally with DB2 or IDS. 6- Rather than merge IDS and DB2 IBM is incorporating the best features of each in the other without compromising the technological strengths and product integrity of either. Examples are IDS style HDR and ER replication in DB2, and improved autonomic computing features in IDS. Where is all of this leading us? Where is it going? My predictions for the next five years: -- After an abortive attempt to pigeon hole IDS as an embedded server for 3rd party application development only, IBM will begin selling DB2 and IDS each to its strengths. IDS for medium to huge SMP and NUMA architecture servers for OLTP and DSS systems, for distributed data applications, and yes as the premium engine for developing 3rd party applications with an embedded enterprise quality RDBMS. DB2 for massive servers on distributed clustered systems for DW and hybrid OLTP/DSS/DW systems. (Unlike my opinion of other RDBMSes out there, from the free to the most expensive, my opinion of DB2 is mostly positive, but I am a firm believer in using the right tool for the job at hand. I believe that IBM and the market will see this also.) -- IBM will continue to produce increased interoperability features in both DB2 and IDS such that applications developed for either will run virtually unchanged connected to the other engine. Already all of IBM's development tools support IDS transparently. -- We will see the ability to replicate data between DB2 and IDS servers making it easier to use both together in the same shop for applications that they each serve best. -- IBM will finally take ownership of IDS renaming it DB2 Dynamic Server Architecture or something similar. Is this the death knell of Informix? No, only of the name and it's not the name that we Informix bigots love. Art S. Kagel, ultimate IDS bigot.

Art, I'll keep my fingers crossed. I've built quite a few massive databases on db2, oracle, informix, sybase, and sql server - and Informix is my favorite. Meanwhile, maybe some of that informix elegance is rubbing off on db2: it has improved so much in the last few years that it's also become pretty fun to work with. And the workgroup license along with large memory footprint, mdc, mqt, and a fast four-way smp can handle a vast amount of data and queries both cheap and easy. buck