Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

[Rhino]

One of my friends, Scott, is a consultant who doesn't currently have
newsgroup access so I am asking these questions for him. I'll be telling him
how to monitor the answers via Google Newsgroup searches.

Scott has heard a lot of hype about DB2 and Oracle and is trying to
understand the pros and cons of each product. I'm quite familiar with DB2
but have never used Oracle so I can't make any meaningful comparisons for
him. He does not have a lot of database background but sometimes has to
choose or recommend a database to his clients.

Scott has enough life-experience to take the marketing information produced
by IBM and Oracle with a grain of salt and would like to hear from real
DBAs, especially ones who are fluent with both products, for their views on
two questions:

1. What are the pros and cons of the current releases of DB2 and Oracle?

2. What other sources of *independent* information are available to help
someone new to databases choose between DB2 and Oracle?

This is *not* a troll and we don't want to start a flame war! Scott just
want some honest facts to help him decide which product is best at which
jobs.

--
Rhino

[Mark Townsend]

michael newport wrote:

Linux / Apache / PHP have taken off because they are reliable and OpenSource.
I predict the same for Ingres.

Linux, Apache and PHP are succesful because there is a strong developer
and user community. Ingres doesn't have this, and making something
OpenSource doesn't cause this community to automatically build.

Linux in particular benefited from the focus companies like Oracle, IBM
and others placed on it. The same level of focus is unlikely to happen
for Ingres.

[michael newport]

> Linux, Apache and PHP are succesful because there is a strong developer

and user community. Ingres doesn't have this, and making something
OpenSource doesn't cause this community to automatically build.
Linux, Apache and PHP did not start off successful. They grew.

Ingres has existed for a long time, the base IS there
comp.databases. ingres
Linux in particular benefited from the focus companies like Oracle, IBM
and others placed on it. The same level of focus is unlikely to happen
for Ingres.

Companies focus on Linux because it is free. A huge advantage.

Oh and by the way Ingres is also free.

[michael newport]

> How many OS versions of DB2 are on the market?

How many OS versions of Oracle?
How many OS versions of Ingres ?
For DB2 you find different databases for quite every platform (OS 390,
UNIX, AIX, mainframe...) - name it. For every problem they have a
database - incompatible between each other...
In Oracle you deal with the same architecture on every OS platform
they support.
In Ingres you deal with the same architecture on every OS platform
they support.
Some of the things I like in Oracle

* a lot of features to select from (Oracles index types i.e.)
* the shared sql approach
* multi-versioning and read consistency implementation (SELECT without
being blocked by writes i.e.)
you would like Ingres then.
at least, all databases return the data that you store,

depends on the human factor.

[Serge Rielau]

Michael,

This thread is now very much off topic.
Comparison between Oracle and Ingres should be in these respective
newsgroups if you insist on having these debates.
I don't see where comp.databases. ibm-db2 is relevant here.

Cheers
Serge

[Jean-David Beyer]

michael newport wrote:

Well, you need to get more experience with new stuff. Doing the same
thing over in a different environment should give you an increased
appreciatio n of what you are doing, and what you could be doing.

It did, and the similarities were all too obvious.

That's not the fault of the product. That direct and proximate
responsibil ity falls on you for being a dinosaur. How much code have
you implemented with bulk binding? How much with the model clause?
How much with analytic functions? How many materialized views with
refresh logs?

its answers the users needs.
and it was written by the dealine.
which meant my company got paid.
although some of this money was then sent to Oracle to pay for the
licence.
if we had used Ingres we could have done the same job for less, or
increased our profits.

I used to work for a vendor of a product that worked on multiple
databases, including Ingres. They dropped Ingres support due to lack
of interest from potential customers. Are you sure whoever paid your
company would have been interested with Ingres? Many products are
considered more desireable simply because they are more expensive.
Stupid, true, but the way of the world.

I agree that CA sales and marketing were bad. But Ingres the product is not.
CA also wasted time and money on speculative products like Jasmine and Opal.
Linux / Apache / PHP have taken off because they are reliable and OpenSource.
I predict the same for Ingres.

I would be curious what the advantages of Ingres might be over other free
(depending on exact usage) dbms's such as postgreSQL and MySQL. I know
that Ingres has been around since even before Oracle existed (late
1970s?). I suppose postgreSQL is a descendant of Ingres.

For desktop use, it probably matters little, though after fussing around
with a bunch of them, I chose to pay IBM for their DB2 UDB because it just
plain worked better and they seemed to follow standards (such as for
Embedded SQL) better than did Informix or postgreSQL did at the time I
tried them (mid to late 1990s).

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 13:05:00 up 4 days, 14:57, 3 users, load average: 5.37, 5.04, 4.59

[Joel Garry]

Mark Townsend <ma***********@ comcast.net> wrote in message news:<41******* *******@comcast .net>...

michael newport wrote:

Linux / Apache / PHP have taken off because they are reliable and OpenSource.
I predict the same for Ingres.
>
Linux, Apache and PHP are succesful because there is a strong developer
and user community. Ingres doesn't have this, and making something
OpenSource doesn't cause this community to automatically build.

That's an interesting perspective, Mark. I agree for linux (certainly
my own interest in linux stemmed from getting away from windows
together with unix bigotry - and now that new versions don't run
[without a whole lot of work] on any of my half-dozen computers and
are suffering from bloatware, I'm not so interested for my own sake).

Apache and PHP, on the other hand, I would argue, benefitted from
having a "killer app," and some cluelessness from MS. Of course, now
that I've argued it, I have to say linux also benefitted from the
same, but subsequent to the developer interest. They all started
because of the strong developer community, but success came later.
For Apache, only a year later, taking over the high growth market that
NCSA created, but later nonetheless.

Linux in particular benefited from the focus companies like Oracle, IBM
and others placed on it. The same level of focus is unlikely to happen
for Ingres.

And so my interest in linux is now professional, rather than personal.
This is a good thing. But linux is only just now becoming successful
in the db world. Some people might still consider it the next big
thing. It's here, bleeding edge places are using it, but
mainstream... maybe all those hp/solaris job ads reflect the
forward-looking people leaving :-)

From my perspective, the only thing that can save Ingres is a killer
app. And I think anyone writing anything new would choose something
else (or db independence), unless some underemployed Ingres people
brainstormed and got lucky.

jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
I'll gladly agree to take only 25%.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...b27lerach.html

[DA Morgan]

michael newport wrote:

Hans,

developmen t and maintenance costs are human factors.

Yes! And they are onging.

If the analysis and /or programming is bad then these costs will be higher.
And do not forget, Oracle will charge you for a licence, this is ongoing.

To reduce the total cost of a project over several years,

Reduce development and maintenance costs,

Human.

By writing and maintaining LESS code,

Human.

By having more capability in the vendor's product,

The database market is saturated with capable products.
What does RMAN do that the OS does not ?

By using that capability.

Human.

Many many things so rather than spouting off about things of which
you have no knowledge why don't you invest some effort and learn
about them. All you've done so far is advertise your lack of knowledge
about both Oracle and DB2.

But for starters ... incremental backup of changed blocks.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
da******@x.wash ington.edu
(replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)

[DA Morgan]

michael newport wrote:

So why buy Oracle when Ingres is free.
If you use Oracle like you use Ingres, you are absolutely correct.

Its just a database. You use it as you need to, to do your job.
See previous post for comparisons on how to do this.

Having stuck your foot into your mouth I was assuming you wouldn't
follow up by trying to swallow it. You claim to be a database
developer but your posts read like a first year Java newbie.
Yes Ingres has changed significantly in the last 7 years.
It is also free.
That is $400 dollars saved.
Now imagine if you were a large company.

$400 is less than we spend in a week for free softdrinks for our
employees. Get a life.

--
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
da******@x.wash ington.edu
(replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)

[DA Morgan]

michael newport wrote:

DA Morgan <da******@x.was hington.edu> wrote in message news:<109875219 3.942650@yasure >...

michael newport wrote:

I am now (1 year) working with Oracle and my work involves doing the
same stuff that I did with Ingres (see previous post).

That's not the fault of the product. That direct and proximate
responsibilit y falls on you for being a dinosaur. How much code have
you implemented with bulk binding? How much with the model clause?
How much with analytic functions? How many materialized views with
refresh logs?

its answers the users needs.
and it was written by the dealine.
which meant my company got paid.
although some of this money was then sent to Oracle to pay for the
licence.
if we had used Ingres we could have done the same job for less, or
increased our profits.

Had you used Ingres the customer likely would have hired a firm that
knew how to work in a real database. Your firm would have been paid $0
and you'd be unemployed.

Why not just admit that you have reached the point in your life
where you want technology to stop and let you keep doing what you
did in neolithic times.

If you are talking about Oracle report server, I will agree with you.
if you are talking about JAVA then you need to thank SUN not Oracle.
But technology for its own sake is a waste of money.

Not once in this entire thread have Oracle Report Server (it doesn't
even exist any more) or JAVA been part of any post. Don't try to change
the subject. That is a activity best left to small children.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
da******@x.wash ington.edu
(replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)

[DA Morgan]

michael newport wrote:

DA Morgan <da******@x.was hington.edu> wrote in message news:<109875222 6.378168@yasure >...

michael newport wrote:

Daniel,

what do you do at the University of Washington ?

nothing to do with education ?

Regards
Michael Newport

Teach databases something that might have interested you
once in your life.

I am still interested, which is why we are having this discussion.
But rather than back a product because it has a particular brand,
I prefer a more realistic discussion of experience.

Have you ever used Ingres ?

I don't "back" a product. I work routinely in multiple products. That
I teach one relates to what the university's students want ... not what
I do.

But no one wants to learn Ingres. It is a decaying corpse that CA has
attempted to bury at sea. If you want to work with a real open-source
database the clear choice is MySQL.

--
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
da******@x.wash ington.edu
(replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)