This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
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Re: No future for DB2
On 2005-07-25, rkusenet <rkusenet@hotma il.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp[/color]
Predictions are hard. Especially if they're about the future.
Or so goes the saying.
hth
Rene
fup to comp.databases. ibm-db2
--
Rene Nyffenegger
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Re: No future for DB2
rkusenet wrote:[color=blue]
> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp[/color]
I am not familiar with the author.
What information the article does contain certainly appears to be on
target and seems fairly accurate in my opinion.
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Re: No future for DB2
rkusenet wrote:
[color=blue]
> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp[/color]
This guy sounds like a magazine troll.
The more I work with DB2, the more I appreciate its power.
Maybe the world is just starting to catch up with DB2.
--
Texeme
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Re: No future for DB2
"rkusenet" <rkusenet@hotma il.com> wrote in message
news:3kkd26Furn dhU1@individual .net...[color=blue]
> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
>[/color]
There are several inaccuracies and illogical statements made in the article.
For example he says that Oracle has won the Linux market because "Oracle
that was willing to make the bold move by announcing at Oracle World its
intention to convert its entire back office infrastructure to run Linux."
AFAIK, all relevant IBM software runs on Linux, so I don't know what he is
talking about. Oracle may being doing very well on Linux, but that is mostly
at the expense of Oracle on other platforms.
His other basic premise is that the market is not big enough for 3 premium
RDBMS vendors, and that DB2 will be odd man out. I don't see that happening
anytime soon, if ever. The market is plenty big for all three, plus MySQL
for some time to come.
Both IBM and Microsoft have one big advantage over Oracle in that RDBMS's
only represent a small part of their overall revenue, and they can afford to
cut prices, unlike Oracle who depends heavily on database revenues. So IBM
will be able to undercut Oracle on pricing, and that will allow them to have
a respectable market share.
Most people on this forum are more concerned about job prospects than which
RDBMS is better or the actual number of database licenses for a particular
vendor. The real key is supply vs. demand. If there are more Oracle DBA's
than jobs for Oracle DBA's, then the job prospects may be dimmer than a less
popular database with fewer available DBA's. Since their is plenty of room
to make Oracle a lot easier to manage with fewer DBA's (DB2 and MS SQL
Server are already easy to use) then the job prospects for Oracle DBA's may
actually get worse even if the installed base gets larger.
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Re: No future for DB2
"John Bailo" <jabailo@texeme .com> wrote in message
news:54CdneG9vL ihv3jfRVn-rw@speakeasy.ne t...[color=blue]
> rkusenet wrote:
>[color=green]
>> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
>> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp[/color]
>
> This guy sounds like a magazine troll.
>
> The more I work with DB2, the more I appreciate its power.
>
> Maybe the world is just starting to catch up with DB2.[/color]
Take it from comp.databases. informix, John, that the quality of the product
is more-or-less immaterial.
My first love is Informix. I've administered DB2, SQL Server and Oracle
and - no flames please, it's just an honest opinion - nothing comes close to
Informix for its elegance, ease of administration and astonishing,
leave-for-years, reliability. As a Certified DB2 UDB Specialist I happen to
agree with your warm thoughts about DB2 to an extent.
All this counts for nothing. The best product does not necessarily win out.
The best-positioned, and best-marketed product does.
So you may be right, and the magazine author may be a troll and he may be
completely wrong. But if he is wrong it isn't because of any of DB2's (or
Oracle's, or SQL Server's) inherent qualities.
Comment
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Re: No future for DB2
Mark A wrote:[color=blue]
> "rkusenet" <rkusenet@hotma il.com> wrote in message
> news:3kkd26Furn dhU1@individual .net...
>[color=green]
>>This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
>>author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
>>[/color]
>
>
> There are several inaccuracies and illogical statements made in the article.
> For example he says that Oracle has won the Linux market because "Oracle
> that was willing to make the bold move by announcing at Oracle World its
> intention to convert its entire back office infrastructure to run Linux."
> AFAIK, all relevant IBM software runs on Linux, so I don't know what he is
> talking about.[/color]
When he says 'entire back office infrastructure' he is talking about
Oracle's internal business apps (i.e General Ledger, AR, Payroll, eMail,
Document Management, Support, CRM etc). AFAIK, IBM does not have
equivalent software.
Oracle may being doing very well on Linux, but that is mostly[color=blue]
> at the expense of Oracle on other platforms.[/color]
Oracle is also showing good growth on Windows (at least according to
Gartner). Any supposed decline in Unix platforms is so negligble to be
hardly measurable.
[color=blue]
> His other basic premise is that the market is not big enough for 3 premium
> RDBMS vendors, and that DB2 will be odd man out. I don't see that happening
> anytime soon, if ever. The market is plenty big for all three, plus MySQL
> for some time to come.[/color]
Probably very true.
[color=blue]
> Both IBM and Microsoft have one big advantage over Oracle in that RDBMS's
> only represent a small part of their overall revenue, and they can afford to
> cut prices, unlike Oracle who depends heavily on database revenues. So IBM
> will be able to undercut Oracle on pricing, and that will allow them to have
> a respectable market share.[/color]
Yes IBM can undercut Oracle on pricing and in fact can bundle the
database with hardware and/or global services. However, it doesn't seem
to actually be helping (at least in the deals I have been involved in)
[color=blue]
> Most people on this forum are more concerned about job prospects than which
> RDBMS is better or the actual number of database licenses for a particular
> vendor. The real key is supply vs. demand. If there are more Oracle DBA's
> than jobs for Oracle DBA's, then the job prospects may be dimmer than a less
> popular database with fewer available DBA's. Since their is plenty of room
> to make Oracle a lot easier to manage with fewer DBA's (DB2 and MS SQL
> Server are already easy to use) then the job prospects for Oracle DBA's may
> actually get worse even if the installed base gets larger.[/color]
Some how I doubt that. There are a couple of key 'speed of light' issues
that mean that DBAs will be needed for many, many years. The first is
that we are managing more data than ever before, and being asked to
manage it for longer periods of time. The second is that the number of
DBAs overall is declining, not growing, as the baby boomers start to
enter enmasse into retirement.
Not sure how a supply and demand argument for DB2 (less popular database
with fewer available DBA's) strengthens the total TCO argument either.
Buy a cheaper database and pay more to have someone look after it ?
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Re: No future for DB2
"Mark Townsend" <markbtownsend@ comcast.net> wrote in message[color=blue]
> When he says 'entire back office infrastructure' he is talking about
> Oracle's internal business apps (i.e General Ledger, AR, Payroll, eMail,
> Document Management, Support, CRM etc). AFAIK, IBM does not have
> equivalent software.
>[/color]
That is exactly why the statement is illogical. IBM does not have such
backend software, so how can IBM be faulted for not converting software it
does not have?
AFAIK, IBM has made all of it's database and related software run on Linux,
including Linux running on IBM mainframes.
I certainly am not discounting that Oracle has a larger market share than
DB2 on Linux, but the article made it seem like IBM did something wrong by
not supporting Linux for their own software.
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Re: No future for DB2
rkusenet wrote:[color=blue]
> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
>[/color]
DB2 takes a bit of getting used to, but it IS easy to use compared
to Oracle. DB2 also takes a rather logical path in its hierarchy
of its architecture, which translates into an easy-to-understand
engine. It has its own quirks, like any product, but it will work
well in shops looking to make a move from SQL-Server, or other
engines.
As far as Oracle, it really is Oracle-vs-Everyone-Else, on the merits
that Oracle does not live by pessimistic locking--it is an optimistic
locking engine, the only one worth mentioning. The important point
here is that application development for Oracle is different than
say for Everyone-Else on that alone. Having said that it means that
if anyone really stands to be "odd-man-out" it would be Oracle, not
DB2. It is far easier to get DB2 working in SQL-Server shops, and
get people to actually using it. DB2 has a very easy to understand
architecture, like Informix, and has a lot of features Informix should
have, like table-level memory-management.
All the big vendors will do the leap-frog of who-is-better but none
of them are judged on a day. Besides in many IT shops Oracle is an
application requiring support, not an application development environment.
This is important to note, because it means Oracle is only as important
as its applications. Outside of Oracle applications, Oracle has a lot
more to worry about than DB2. It is also important to note that DB2
is also being used in a utilitarian way on a lot of IBM hardware, and
in Websphere, so its hard to say that DB2 is in "trouble". It runs
well, and takes a lot of abuse, similar to SQL-Server. While it might
be more favorable to work on your pet DB, most shops are using more
than just one DB anyway, so it's safe to say DB2 will be around for
a while.
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Re: No future for DB2
Mark A wrote:
[color=blue]
> I certainly am not discounting that Oracle has a larger market share than
> DB2 on Linux, but the article made it seem like IBM did something wrong by
> not supporting Linux for their own software.[/color]
We have to be careful with 'market share'.
Oracle, for instance, during its heydey, went around selling Oracle to
almost anyone they could browbeat into buying a copy. Whether those
databases amounted to anything useful or not .. who knows.
Same with SQL Server. Everyone and his brother has a SQL Server instance
set up...but how many of those are being used for a single table of
contacts?
I maintain, and I have no data just experience, that IBM, the iSeries
( which is a DB2 UDB ), p and z Series DB2 installations are almost
entirely being used for /real/ applications... transactional
applications... live business applications.
And, while the iSeries has declined in revenue somewhat since inception,
it's staging a comeback...whic h means a comeback for DB2. What is more,
the architecture of OS400 (everything an object in a database) may have
been radical for 1989...but now, with Longhorn (or whatever they call it)
aping the OS400, one has to say, "yeah, IBM has been there all along".
So, let's get real. DB2 runs the world. Other RDBMS run vanity systems
and developer projects that never went anywhere.
--
Texeme
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Re: No future for DB2
> AFAIK, IBM has made all of it's database and related software run on[color=blue]
> Linux, including Linux running on IBM mainframes.
>[/color]
IMO, the only thing sounds more ludicrous than Linux on mainframe is Java on
mainframe. Has anybody at IBM done the math on price/performance?
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Re: No future for DB2
"Bob Jones" <email@me.not > wrote in message
news:C0gFe.486$ kk6.393@newssvr 13.news.prodigy .com...[color=blue][color=green]
>> AFAIK, IBM has made all of it's database and related software run on
>> Linux, including Linux running on IBM mainframes.
>>[/color]
>
> IMO, the only thing sounds more ludicrous than Linux on mainframe is Java
> on mainframe. Has anybody at IBM done the math on price/performance?[/color]
Price-performance ain't what it used to be. Mainframes are air-cooled and
some PC's (including some Mac servers) are water cooled these days.
Many mainframes use the same enterprise storage systems as most UNIX
servers.
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Re: No future for DB2
rkusenet wrote:[color=blue]
> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
>[/color]
in addition to what's been remarked on: the data for the last
5 or so years make one thing quite clear -- DB2 revenue and installs
growth are mainframe driven. factor that out, and there is little to
negative growth.
locking: oracle isn't the only multiversion concurrency engine, so
are postgres and ingres (same roots, not oracle's). the other
commercial db's are lockers. this does have significance going
forward; web style databasing pretty much requires optimistic locking.
oracle should do nicely in that environment. lockers won't. this
observation has no relation (pun??, you decide) to the technical
superiority of one or the other. it's the main reason oracle is
pilloried as a resource hog.
there is *no* DB2: there are three unrelated codebases. whether or if
ibm will merge them, is opinion. mine is, not in anyone's lifetime. as
i understand it, oracle is one codebase. on the other hand, oracle is
reknowned for collapsing on z/OS. gee, ya think? will ibm be willing
and able to carry three codebases?? probably not. to the extent that
the *nix database future is web related, oracle wins. see above.
eventually, may be sooner than armonk will admit, all of those hoary
COBOL/VSAM apps will be migrated to DB2. once that happens, the
growth engine dies. cough, cough.
BobTheDataBaseB oy
Comment
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Re: No future for DB2
Data Goob wrote
[color=blue]
> As far as Oracle, it really is Oracle-vs-Everyone-Else, on the merits
> that Oracle does not live by pessimistic locking--it is an optimistic
> locking engine, the only one worth mentioning. The important point
> here is that application development for Oracle is different than
> say for Everyone-Else on that alone. Having said that it means that
> if anyone really stands to be "odd-man-out" it would be Oracle, not
> DB2. It is far easier to get DB2 working in SQL-Server shops, and
> get people to actually using it.[/color]
This is a funny way of looking at. Obviously Oracle's none locking
engine is perfectly suited to scaling multi user applications,
particularly when most people are developing for stateless clients.
The fact that developers have to go through the same gyrations for
most other databses, copying data to private sessions to avoid locks,
can hardly be a long term benefit for those databases. Yes developers
hit problems moving to Oracle because of this but it is mostly
because they want to do things that are no longer needed, see all the
posts about creating temp tables in Oracle. You very rarely need to,
just run the query, this is a database not a file system. The whole
idea is you say what you want and let the database work out how to
get it. This is alien to many developers, but is is also in part alien
to databases that don't let you just run a query, or insert what
you want to, without first working out how to go about it and not
tread on other users of the system.
Obviously without these benefits competition is easier between
locking databases, so it if it is easier to move between DB2 and
SQL Server, as the technical merits are closer, it becomes more
of a choice of OS or hardware and the database can become secondary.
I don't see how this protects DB2 share as IBM does not have a good
track record when it comes up against Microsoft in the software
market. IBM's software business plays third fiddle behind hardware
and services. It is a huge assumption that ease of migration
will result in movement mostly from SQL Server to DB2.
Of course all this might change if reports of Microsoft's efforts
to turn SQL Server into a none locking database are true. Although,
again I don't see how DB2 being the only big, locking database along
with Informix, Sybase and Ingres (maybe?) is going to help it much
either.
--
MJB
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Re: No future for DB2
BobTheDataBaseB oy wrote:[color=blue]
> rkusenet wrote:
>[color=green]
>> This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
>> author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
>>[/color]
>
> in addition to what's been remarked on: the data for the last
> 5 or so years make one thing quite clear -- DB2 revenue and installs
> growth are mainframe driven. factor that out, and there is little to
> negative growth.
>
> locking: oracle isn't the only multiversion concurrency engine, so
> are postgres and ingres (same roots, not oracle's). the other
> commercial db's are lockers. this does have significance going
> forward; web style databasing pretty much requires optimistic locking.
> oracle should do nicely in that environment. lockers won't. this
> observation has no relation (pun??, you decide) to the technical
> superiority of one or the other. it's the main reason oracle is
> pilloried as a resource hog.
>[/color]
Not to start a flame war, but optimistic-vs-pessimistic locking is
simply an architecture to deal with, it doesn't mean that one is
better suited for the web or not. If your assertion was true we'd
all be forced to use Oracle, and the rest would have all died off.
MySQL would never have made it, and Larry would be buying out Bill.
If anything is true, low cost drives the web market, and when you
begin to actually bundle prices for products, like in a spreadsheet,
and actually compare products that YOU will be responsible for their
purchase, you will sing a different tune. You will also notice that
when actually comparing prices and looking at what vertical markets
are choosing, the price point for run times is almost identical
among the big vendors--except Oracle is the priciest. Workgroup versions
too. Oracle also requires a lot of other stuff, the add-ons are too
numerous to mention, so the cost is not just the DB alone. DB2 on
this alone makes it cheaper. Utilization costs, overhead of getting
people trained, etc should also be factored in. Most people can
actually start using DB2 without training, compare that with the
beast Oracle, which has one of the most complicated engines on the
market.
[color=blue]
> there is *no* DB2: there are three unrelated codebases. whether or if
> ibm will merge them, is opinion. mine is, not in anyone's lifetime. as
> i understand it, oracle is one codebase. on the other hand, oracle is
> reknowned for collapsing on z/OS. gee, ya think? will ibm be willing
> and able to carry three codebases?? probably not. to the extent that
> the *nix database future is web related, oracle wins. see above.
>[/color]
Yawn. If you actually knew the market outside Oracle you would not
say such blatant flame bait.
[color=blue]
> eventually, may be sooner than armonk will admit, all of those hoary
> COBOL/VSAM apps will be migrated to DB2. once that happens, the
> growth engine dies. cough, cough.
>
> BobTheDataBaseB oy
>
>[/color]
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