RE: Informix vs. Oracle

From: Mark Townsend [mailto:mtownsen@us.oracle.com] > >Just to keep the debate informed ... I notice you didn't "inform" us about all the gripes which the independent analysts and the TPC had about Oracle's Discrete Transaction technology violating the spirit, if not the letter of the benchmark rules? (But of course, that's old news, we should all know that already! :-) Anyway, the real point here is to do your own, representative benchmark. I've seen too many people who do a simple benchmark based on one tiny aspect of their application, often with horrendous consequences (unless they choose Informix, of course! :-) However, THIS DOES NOT EXCUSE INFORMIX'S COWARDLY SHIRKING OF THEIR DUTY TO PERFORM AND PUBLISH TPC-C BENCHMARKS!!! Oracle, Sybase and DB/2 are surely making a lot of capital out of the fact that Informix is "too scared" to do a TPC-C benchmark. As a pointy-haired boss, I don't give a toss about some abstract academic issue about whether the benchmark is valid or not, I just want to see that my choice is up there with the rest of them. Right now, (and for the last God knows how long!) I just don't see that, and Informix's market presence again takes a body blow. Did anyone from Informix notice how quickly Mr Townsend was able to "disprove" (or at least challenge) even the mighty Art Kagel with a published benchmark (even though it's still under review)? Did anyone from Informix notice how Oracle sits in the TOP THREE PLACES in the TPC benchmarks? This means that Oracle can crow away about being the fastest database quite happily, and Informix can't really dispute that at all from a marketing perspective. I'm glad to see that Informix is publishing benchmarks at all ( http://www.tpc.org/results/tpc_h.results.page.html -- the only one to date!), but in order to be seen as a viable player, they should be seen as competitive in *all* the benchmark arenas. Why isn't there a TPC-R benchmark? There is only one player there too (NCR/Teradata)... And the irritating thing is TPC-C -- while Informix isn't there, other vendors will be able to walk all over them. It doesn't matter if Oracle have rigged the damn thing, don't just sit in the corner and sulk! Hell, even Sybase is giving it a go! (And I don't believe that the OLTP market is dead or even dying -- as long as there's another killer app on its way, there'll be a growing market for OLTP database server, so don't try that BS on me... )-: Art Kagel said: > > The Oracle results do not show the result of scaling up > > the dataset size or the number of users, these are always selected to > > avoid showing the severe performance drop off, certainly compared to > > Informix, of increasing database size and increasing numbers of users. > >http://www.tpc.org/new_result/c-result1.idc?id=98101303 >http://www.tpc.org/new_result/c-result1.idc?id=98121801 > > > Ever notice that they do not test on a Sun E650 with 24 CPUS or an >E10000 > > with 32 CPUs? That is because Oracle does not take good advantage of >all > > those resources! > >http://www.tpc.org/new_result/c-result1.idc?id=99032301 > > > Keith, if you really want to see which server is better bring both > > companies in to prove themselves. > >Absolutely -- Bye now, Obnoxio "The one with the smartest marketing department wins" ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com