Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

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  • Serge Rielau

    #46
    Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

    Noons wrote:
    [color=blue]
    > Serge Rielau <srielau@ca.ibm .com> wrote in message news:<2tpoheF22 1ps9U1@uni-berlin.de>...[color=green]
    >>Now that R correlates, for all major RDBMS that I know, quite well with
    >>SQL as it's access language. Do you know of other languages commonly
    >>used in an RDBMS? Yes, there could be, but there aren't.[/color]
    > Yes I do, and yes there are. Quel from Ingres is one of them.
    > They still make it available, last time I looked. Sure it's not
    > much used and anyone using anything other than SQL must have rocks
    > on their head or doing research. That's not the point, though.
    > The point is that relational != SQL. Period. A DML is not a
    > data storage theory.[/color]
    ... and that's where many, many customer's installations ail.
    They believe by storing their data in tables and having some RI they are
    using an RDBMS.
    All they have done is found persistent storage for their data which then
    is "processed" using nested cursors and procedural languages.
    It's the curse of providing PL/SQL, SQL PL, SPL, TSQL....
    The _center piece_ of RDBMS: "relational alegbra" ends up as roadkill in
    the ditch. 30 years of research and all there is to show for it is that
    data is stored in tables.

    I should be fine with it.. it does sell hardware.

    Cheers
    Serge

    Comment

    • DA Morgan

      #47
      Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

      Comments in-line.

      michael newport wrote:
      [color=blue]
      > Daniel,
      >
      > in Ingres I wrote 4GL, in Oracle I write PL/SQL[/color]

      Because you don't know how to write Java in the database?
      [color=blue]
      > in Ingres I wrote SQL, in Oracle I write SQL[/color]

      Because you don't know how to write Java in the database?
      [color=blue]
      > in Ingres I ran an overnight batch from a Unix cron job, in Oracle I
      > schedule a dbms_job[/color]

      Or dbms_scheduler
      Or UNIX cron job
      Or AppWorx
      Or any one of a large number of other possible solutions.
      [color=blue]
      > in Ingres my results went to a database table, in Oracle my results go
      > to a database table[/color]

      I'm impressed.
      [color=blue]
      > in Ingres I wrote a user parameterized report, in Oracle I write a
      > user parameterized report[/color]

      Similarly impressed.
      [color=blue]
      > in Ingres I ran the report with a system call, in Oracle I use Oracle
      > Reports server (with all its nasty bugs)[/color]

      Then you made a horrible choice of reporting software.
      [color=blue]
      > Ingres is free, Oracle is not
      >
      > did I miss something ?
      >
      > Regards
      > Michael Newport[/color]

      What did you miss?

      1. Security model
      2. Scalability
      3. Performance
      4. Shared Everything Architecture
      5. RAC
      6. DataGuard
      7. RMAN
      8. User defined indexes
      9. User defined operators
      10. User defined locking
      11. Domain indexes
      12. Reverse-key indexes
      13. Compressed indexes
      14. Function based indexes
      15. Sequences
      16. User defined data types
      17. Partitioning and Subpartitioning
      18. Global Temporary Tables
      19. External Tables
      20. Index Organized Tables
      21. Enterprise level support 7x24x365
      22. Books at Amazon.com
      (Oracle 27,707 hits, DB2 1,955 hits, Ingres 0 hits if refering to
      your product)
      23. Jobs at Dice.com
      (Oracle 8,097 jobs, DB2 1,779 jobs, Ingres 18 jobs)
      24. Jobs at Monster.com
      25. Jobs at Hotjobs.com
      26. Packages
      27. Native compilation into C of PL/SQL
      28. TAF (transparent application failover)
      29. A prayer the product will still exist in 10 years.

      I think I've made my point.

      If you want a more valid comparison ... compare Ingres to MySQL,
      PostgreSQL, Firebird, 3x5 cards. The difference will still be
      more books, more jobs, and more chance it will survive 5 years.
      --
      Daniel A. Morgan
      University of Washington
      damorgan@x.wash ington.edu
      (replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)

      Comment

      • Jim Kennedy

        #48
        Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?


        "Serge Rielau" <srielau@ca.ibm .com> wrote in message
        news:2tq1noF234 nkoU1@uni-berlin.de...[color=blue]
        > Jim,
        >
        > I can't comment on DB2 for zOS. Would be interested to know whether this
        > behaviour is still in existence and whether it was condidered working as
        > designed or a bug (e.g. a bad lock).
        > The behaviour you describe seems to indicate that users also wouldn't be
        > able to bind static apps concurrently... ..
        >
        > Cheers
        > Serge[/color]

        I can't tell you since I don't use DB2 anymore and we don't have a mainframe
        where I work. I would expect that DB2 would work the same regardless of OS.
        (not counting OS limitations ) IBM didn't consider it a bug. I was doing
        work for American Transtech at the time (a subsidiary of ATT, certainly a
        large enough customer to get attention). People couldn't bind apps
        concurrently, but since the machine was fast enough people wouldn't notice.
        Jim


        Comment

        • HansF

          #49
          Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

          DA Morgan wrote:
          [color=blue][color=green]
          >> in Ingres I ran the report with a system call, in Oracle I use Oracle
          >> Reports server (with all its nasty bugs)[/color]
          >
          > Then you made a horrible choice of reporting software.
          >[/color]

          You're right. Often overlooked is Oracle's free SQLPlus & iSQLPlus which,
          with it's formatting capability will satisfy, a significant percentage of
          all reports. Especially when coupled with the new raw SQL grouping
          functions available such as period-over-period comparisons, etc. (No need
          even to go OLAP)

          Sometimes the simplest solutions are best, no matter how much people sneer
          at them! (I already hear the howls: but , but ... <G>)

          /Hans

          Comment

          • michael newport

            #50
            Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

            correction you thought that you had made your point...

            You can also use JAVA on Ingres.

            1. Security model – same
            2. Scalability - same
            3. Performance - same

            4. Shared Everything Architecture - equivalent
            5. RAC - equivalent
            6. DataGuard - equivalent
            7. RMAN - equivalent
            28. TAF (transparent application failover) - equivalent

            8. User defined indexes - same
            9. User defined operators - same
            10. User defined locking - nice but never needed
            11. Domain indexes - nice but never needed
            12. Reverse-key indexes - same
            13. Compressed indexes - same
            14. Function based indexes - nice but never needed
            15. Sequences - same
            16. User defined data types - same
            17. Partitioning and Subpartitioning - same
            18. Global Temporary Tables - same
            19. External Tables - same
            20. Index Organized Tables - same
            21. Enterprise level support 7x24x365 - same

            22. Books at Amazon.com
            (Oracle 27,707 hits, DB2 1,955 hits, Ingres 0 hits if refering to
            your product)
            23. Jobs at Dice.com
            (Oracle 8,097 jobs, DB2 1,779 jobs, Ingres 18 jobs)
            24. Jobs at Monster.com
            25. Jobs at Hotjobs.com

            I agree that Oracle wins on the job front but that will change.
            Would you rather keep your job and use Ingres ? or
            keep Oracle and have your job outsourced to India ?

            26. Packages - like programs ?
            27. Native compilation into C of PL/SQL – never needed this

            29. A prayer the product will still exist in 10 years. –
            now that Ingres is Open Source it will still be here, why,

            because its free

            for the few things that Ingres does not have, Oracle is not worth the money ??

            I know I have made my point !

            Regards
            Michael Newport

            Comment

            • Philip Sherman

              #51
              Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

              Jim's comment about zOS behavior is what I also remember from my
              mainframe days. My recollection is that this was (is?) a characteristic
              of mainframe QMF because QMF interacts directly with the user and the
              SQL statements don't complete until the user closes the session. We even
              had a case where a user ran a query then went to lunch without
              terminating it and held locks for over an hour!

              The solution I implemented was to switch to using DSNTEP2 (a freebie
              supplied with DB2) as a replacement for QMF for simple queries. Heavy
              duty reporting was moved to "canned" QMF procedures where knowledgeable
              programmers could optimize performance and concurrency.

              Phil Sherman



              Serge Rielau wrote:[color=blue]
              > Jim,
              >
              > I can't comment on DB2 for zOS. Would be interested to know whether this
              > behaviour is still in existence and whether it was condidered working as
              > designed or a bug (e.g. a bad lock).
              > The behaviour you describe seems to indicate that users also wouldn't be
              > able to bind static apps concurrently... ..
              >
              > Cheers
              > Serge[/color]

              Comment

              • JS

                #52
                Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                DA Morgan <damorgan@x.was hington.edu> wrote in message news:<109825036 5.710337@yasure >...[color=blue]
                > Rhino wrote:
                >[color=green]
                > > Nobody's looking for a free ride. He/we just wanted to hear from people who
                > > had used BOTH products to see what their pros and cons were. He/we also
                > > wanted recommendations about good independent sources of reviews of these
                > > products. That's exactly what I asked for.
                > >
                > > Rhino[/color]
                >
                > And exactly what you are not going to get as I haven't found a single
                > post from anyone that believes you. It is absolutely impossible for the
                > situation you presented to be true.[/color]

                the true answer to the original question posted, which was, which db
                is better, is: it's a tie, both products under the control of
                experienced DBA('s) (and let's not forget the developer's) will do the
                job for which they were designed.
                Both products can scale indefinately, perhaps db2 has better locking
                mechanism but overall you would have to slice the product very thinly
                to declare a true winner. That said, db2 is cheaper, so in my mind you
                get more bang for the buck with db2.

                Comment

                • HansF

                  #53
                  Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                  JS wrote:
                  [color=blue]
                  > That said, db2 is cheaper, so in my mind you
                  > get more bang for the buck with db2.[/color]

                  I note the following from http://oraclestore.oracle.com (US) and


                  Personal:

                  DB2 UDB PERSONAL EDITION INSTALL LIC+SW MAINT 12 MO (D5B69LL) 461.00
                  Oracle Database Personal Edition - Named User Plus Perpetual[$400.00]
                  (add 15% for support) = $60

                  The licensing agreements on the IBM site are moderately confusing for me
                  (I'm familiar with Oracle's licensing mess), but IF I interpret them
                  correctly, having checked the numbers for other versions ...

                  the LIST price for DB2 at any version, personal / workgroup /
                  enterprise / and so on seems roughly equivalent to the Oracle
                  counterpart, within a reasonable error.

                  From what I can tell, DB2 provides the opportunity to buy more options,
                  resumably because the capabilities are not included in the base line. But,
                  in fairness, in both cases I see options that are not in the other, and I
                  assume that the items that are not listed as options are embedded in the
                  base product.

                  The only discussion can be from a list price perspective and standard
                  discounts - all bets are off when negotiating prices as there are to many
                  additional variables.

                  So I see NO PRICING advantage to DB2.

                  My conclusion: I could agree with your comment that DB2 is cheaper (if you
                  insist on sticking with that), but I perceive it is NOT less expensive.

                  /Hans



                  Comment

                  • Mikito Harakiri

                    #54
                    Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                    wizofoz2k@yahoo .com.au (Noons) wrote in message news:<73e20c6c. 0410201921.44db 942e@posting.go ogle.com>...[color=blue]
                    > mikharakiri_nos paum@yahoo.com (Mikito Harakiri) wrote in message news:<8a529bb.0 410200902.53af2 4b9@posting.goo gle.com>...[color=green]
                    > > Let's not forget that RDBMS essentially is a SQL execution engine, and[/color]
                    >
                    > Most definitely not. That is a file system.[/color]

                    Are you kidding?
                    [color=blue]
                    > A *database* (that is what the
                    > "D" in RDBMS stands for) is not even necessarily a SQL execution engine:
                    > it could be an execution engine for many other languages.[/color]

                    By RDBMS I have meant SQL DBMS; this is what all vendors are offering.

                    It is SQL interface that makes DBMS that powerful, not bells and
                    whistles. Some procedural to SQL is warranted, because user-defined
                    functions make SQL more powerful. Analytic exptensions arguably makes
                    SQL even mightier. And, sorry, junk XML extensions don't make SQL more
                    powerful.
                    [color=blue][color=green]
                    > > everything else should be judged from the perspective how well does it
                    > > fit into that primary purpose. Therefore, let's go through your list
                    > > itemized:[/color]
                    >
                    > Your primary purpose is totally wrong. You don't need a RDBMS,
                    > you need only a SQL engine. Obviously, you can do everything
                    > else the database can do, yourself, and better. What can I say?[/color]

                    SQL is high level programmatic environment. Did I ever say I don't
                    need high level programming environment and goind to reimplement it
                    myself? Or I'm talking to DBA, who usually have no idea what
                    programmatic environment is?

                    Comment

                    • Mikito Harakiri

                      #55
                      Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                      "Mikito Harakiri" <mikharakiri_no spaum@yahoo.com > wrote in message
                      news:8a529bb.04 10221202.68eeb0 bb@posting.goog le.com...[color=blue]
                      > wizofoz2k@yahoo .com.au (Noons) wrote in message[/color]
                      news:<73e20c6c. 0410201921.44db 942e@posting.go ogle.com>...[color=blue][color=green]
                      > > mikharakiri_nos paum@yahoo.com (Mikito Harakiri) wrote in message[/color][/color]
                      news:<8a529bb.0 410200902.53af2 4b9@posting.goo gle.com>...[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
                      > > > everything else should be judged from the perspective how well does it
                      > > > fit into that primary purpose. Therefore, let's go through your list
                      > > > itemized:[/color]
                      > >
                      > > Your primary purpose is totally wrong. You don't need a RDBMS,
                      > > you need only a SQL engine. Obviously, you can do everything
                      > > else the database can do, yourself, and better. What can I say?[/color]
                      >
                      > SQL is high level programmatic environment. Did I ever say I don't
                      > need high level programming environment and goind to reimplement it
                      > myself? Or I'm talking to DBA, who usually have no idea what
                      > programmatic environment is?[/color]

                      You probably have meant that there is much more to RDBMS than just SQL
                      engine. One need to store tables somewhere, there should be a way to connect
                      client somehow, etc. DBAs usually make a great deal out of those gory
                      implementation details. In that case I have a news for you: there is not
                      much demand in marketplace for masters of segments and extents anymore --
                      it's automated. The art of juggling init.ora parameters is on its way to
                      obsolescense as well. Once again, it's SQL interface is what defines
                      database, and would stay with us for quite a while.


                      Comment

                      • DA Morgan

                        #56
                        Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                        michael newport wrote:
                        [color=blue]
                        > correction you thought that you had made your point...
                        >
                        > You can also use JAVA on Ingres.
                        >
                        > 1. Security model – same
                        > 2. Scalability - same
                        > 3. Performance - same[/color]

                        hardly
                        hardly
                        hardly

                        And if you disagree feel free to point me to the benchmarks
                        that prove otherwise. Last time I looked at Ingres it had nothing
                        even remotely approaching FGA and FGAC capabilities.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 4. Shared Everything Architecture - equivalent[/color]

                        Nonsense.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 5. RAC - equivalent[/color]

                        Pure rubbish. You need to get back on your medication. ;-)
                        [color=blue]
                        > 6. DataGuard - equivalent[/color]

                        Send a link.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 7. RMAN - equivalent[/color]

                        Not in your wildest imagination.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 28. TAF (transparent application failover) - equivalent[/color]

                        Sorry but my contacts at CA say no such technology exists.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 8. User defined indexes - same[/color]

                        Provide a link or demonstrate the Ingres syntax.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 9. User defined operators - same[/color]

                        Provide a link or demonstrate the Ingres syntax.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 10. User defined locking - nice but never needed[/color]

                        Your loss.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 11. Domain indexes - nice but never needed[/color]

                        Your loss. But then you don't have full-text indexing as in
                        Oracle Text and InterMedia so why have the domain indexes when
                        you don't have the technology to use them.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 14. Function based indexes - nice but never needed[/color]

                        Your loss.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 16. User defined data types - same[/color]

                        In your dreams.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 17. Partitioning and Subpartitioning - same[/color]

                        Nonsense.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 18. Global Temporary Tables - same[/color]

                        Nonsense.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 19. External Tables - same[/color]

                        Nonsense.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 20. Index Organized Tables - same[/color]

                        Nonsense.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 21. Enterprise level support 7x24x365 - same[/color]

                        For free. You've really got to stop smokin' that stuff.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 22. Books at Amazon.com
                        > (Oracle 27,707 hits, DB2 1,955 hits, Ingres 0 hits if refering to
                        > your product)
                        > 23. Jobs at Dice.com
                        > (Oracle 8,097 jobs, DB2 1,779 jobs, Ingres 18 jobs)
                        > 24. Jobs at Monster.com
                        > 25. Jobs at Hotjobs.com
                        >
                        > I agree that Oracle wins on the job front but that will change.
                        > Would you rather keep your job and use Ingres ? or
                        > keep Oracle and have your job outsourced to India ?[/color]

                        More jobs for MySQL than Ingres. More jobs for PostgreSQL than Ingres.
                        My jobs not in danger. And if it was there are 8,097 possibilities for
                        me. You get to choose from 18. And it is no secret I will get paid
                        tens of thousands of dollars more each year with Oracle or DB2 than you
                        will with you open source (because we couldn't sell it to anyone) database.[color=blue]
                        >
                        > 26. Packages - like programs ?[/color]

                        You made up your answers to previous questions when you had no idea what
                        the technology was so why ask a question now?
                        [color=blue]
                        > 27. Native compilation into C of PL/SQL – never needed this[/color]

                        Apparently you've never built a real RDBMS application with tens of
                        thousands of simultaneous users runnign 7x24x365. Perhaps Ingres is the
                        right tool for you.
                        [color=blue]
                        > 29. A prayer the product will still exist in 10 years. –
                        > now that Ingres is Open Source it will still be here, why,
                        >
                        > because its free
                        >
                        > for the few things that Ingres does not have, Oracle is not worth the money ??
                        >
                        > I know I have made my point !
                        >
                        > Regards
                        > Michael Newport[/color]

                        In a world with multiple open-source products only the best will
                        survive. A category in which, alas, Ingres is not a player. The only
                        reason Ingres is open-source is CA couldn't sell it. It has no real
                        community support and will perish. Well no doubt there is someone
                        out there using Advanced Revelation, RPG II, dBASE 4, etc. But they
                        really are not players and that is where Ingres is going. Even FoxPro,
                        as pathetic as Microsoft's marketing is, does better than Ingres.

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

                        Comment

                        • DA Morgan

                          #57
                          Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                          JS wrote:
                          [color=blue]
                          > DA Morgan <damorgan@x.was hington.edu> wrote in message news:<109825036 5.710337@yasure >...
                          >[color=green]
                          >>Rhino wrote:
                          >>
                          >>[color=darkred]
                          >>>Nobody's looking for a free ride. He/we just wanted to hear from people who
                          >>>had used BOTH products to see what their pros and cons were. He/we also
                          >>>wanted recommendations about good independent sources of reviews of these
                          >>>products. That's exactly what I asked for.
                          >>>
                          >>>Rhino[/color]
                          >>
                          >>And exactly what you are not going to get as I haven't found a single
                          >>post from anyone that believes you. It is absolutely impossible for the
                          >>situation you presented to be true.[/color]
                          >
                          >
                          > the true answer to the original question posted, which was, which db
                          > is better, is: it's a tie, both products under the control of
                          > experienced DBA('s) (and let's not forget the developer's) will do the
                          > job for which they were designed.
                          > Both products can scale indefinately, perhaps db2 has better locking
                          > mechanism but overall you would have to slice the product very thinly
                          > to declare a true winner. That said, db2 is cheaper, so in my mind you
                          > get more bang for the buck with db2.[/color]

                          Another one that gave into the temptation to render an opinion when the
                          better man would have ignored the temptation. Repent. ;-)
                          --
                          Daniel A. Morgan
                          University of Washington
                          damorgan@x.wash ington.edu
                          (replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)

                          Comment

                          • HansF

                            #58
                            Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                            michael newport wrote:
                            [color=blue]
                            > correction you thought that you had made your point...
                            >
                            > You can also use JAVA on Ingres.[/color]

                            But nothing I've read says you can use Java IN Ingres. As in stored
                            procedures. But since Ingres is missing triggers, I suppose it doesn't
                            really matter. (Have to admit the rough counterpart - events - is neat. A
                            bit like database level triggers.)
                            [color=blue]
                            >
                            > 1. Security model – same[/color]

                            Agreed, if you restrict yourself to simple grants. The Oracle security
                            model has a few additional things that are relevant and somewhat more
                            advanced than what the Ingres DBA manual indicates. At the tip of the
                            iceberg we see Virtual Private Database ...
                            [color=blue]
                            > 2. Scalability - same[/color]

                            I can't seem to find any reference to scalability in the Ingres
                            documentation, or to system limitations. Nor did Google give any
                            references to big Ingres implementations .

                            Pointers would be appreciated to indicate that Ingres can handle 3000
                            concurrent users and 20TByte of raw data.
                            [color=blue]
                            > 3. Performance - same[/color]

                            Checked TCP.org - no Ingres in sight. Any suggestions?
                            [color=blue]
                            > 4. Shared Everything Architecture - equivalent
                            > 5. RAC - equivalent[/color]

                            So you are saying I can have 2 servers updating the same database
                            concurrently? Not SMP - separate machines. Updating the same table?

                            Couldn't find that in the docco.

                            What I did find, in the System Administrator's guide (pp11-1) is "The Ingres
                            High Availability Option is not scalable; that is, it does not provide
                            active instances on multiple nodes."
                            [color=blue]
                            > 6. DataGuard - equivalent[/color]

                            I simply could not find the terms failover and failback in the docco.
                            Pointer?

                            The System admin manual does discuss a cluster-coordinated switch over,
                            using scripts. I assume you mean that. A bit like the pre-DataGuard 'Fail
                            Safe' back in 7.3.4 and 8.0.
                            [color=blue]
                            > 7. RMAN - equivalent[/color]

                            Nothing I saw in the docco indicated that there is a facility to do the
                            backupand track the location of the pieces of the backups to provide
                            recommendations about which files (Journal or other) are required to
                            recover the database. Seems it's a manual effort. Perhaps I'm wrong?
                            [color=blue]
                            > 28. TAF (transparent application failover) - equivalent[/color]

                            That's usually a function related to the cluster-cordinate failover. TAF
                            can provide transparent failover, with no need to restart the transaction.
                            [color=blue]
                            > 8. User defined indexes - same[/color]

                            We store non-traditional datatypes (keyword, spatial data, images, music,
                            sheet music ....) and want to create a custom index? Oracle permits that -
                            you define the indexing mechanisms and tell Oracle to use that WHILE
                            keeping the base integrity of the index mechanism.

                            Ingres, being open source, allows you to totally rewrite indexing - so that
                            is the same. However, the engine doesn't then guarantee the integrity of
                            other kinds of indexes while one is putzing with the base indexing code. A
                            bit of a trade-off?
                            [color=blue]
                            > 9. User defined operators - same
                            > 10. User defined locking - nice but never needed[/color]

                            Most developers depend on table serialization to ensure that operations
                            block appropriately. Even if that cuts scalability to 5-10 concurrent
                            users.

                            I prefer having some mechanism other than data locking to coordinate
                            concurrent operations.
                            [color=blue]
                            > 11. Domain indexes - nice but never needed[/color]

                            Domains are basically previously undefined datatypes, somewhat like UDTs
                            (which are not limited to just "structures ")

                            Why would anyone want to create any new data type and create an index type
                            that's relevant to the UDT? Much better to put that code in the
                            application than in the database! (Not)
                            [color=blue]
                            > 12. Reverse-key indexes - same[/color]

                            Didn't see that in the online SQL manual as part of the CREATE INDEX
                            command. Have to take your word for it.
                            [color=blue]
                            > 13. Compressed indexes - same[/color]

                            Yup. Finally one that seems similar. With the level of flexibility
                            described, possibly even better than Oracle's compression.
                            [color=blue]
                            > 14. Function based indexes - nice but never needed[/color]

                            I think you missed the definition. In Oracle, the index is based on a user
                            defined _expression_ - so the ability to create an index on

                            (col1 * col2 + col3 )

                            is permitted. This are useful if the expression (using any function, even
                            user created functions) happens to occur frequently. Why look up the
                            pieces and assemble them later?

                            I could go on, but ....



                            My conclusion now is the same as I'd concluded that early 90's when a buddy
                            went to work for Ingres and encouraged a 'fair evaluation': Ingres is a
                            good database for reasonably plain, small, simple database usage with
                            nicely defined data buckets. For that it's probably one of the better
                            databases, but from what I can tell all effort goes into the application to
                            overcome the limitations.

                            However, my philosophy is 'give unto the database everything that can be
                            centralized'. Oracle's philosophy of additional tools, tricks and
                            simplifications help me. They will optimize and maintain those leaving me
                            free to worry about the application. And since I am willing to use them,
                            these items make the application's 3-year cost fairly reasonable.


                            I'm happy that Ingres is Open Source, even under CA's 'special' license. (I
                            hate it when the lawyers have to add value to a perfectly reasonable GPL.)

                            Of all the Open Source RDBMSs, I think Ingres will give Oracle the biggest
                            run for it's money if it survives. However I see MySQL, PostgreSQL - and
                            now Ingres - are competing and I think that will likely devolve to the old
                            unix SysV vs BSD core battles which helped no one (except Microsoft).



                            Since the questions I asked were mainly rhetorical, hopefully this will end
                            the "Ingres is good too!" contribution to the DB2 vs Oracle thread. <G>

                            /Hans

                            Comment

                            • Noons

                              #59
                              Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                              Serge Rielau <srielau@ca.ibm .com> wrote in message news:<2tqu5gF21 ve94U1@uni-berlin.de>...
                              [color=blue]
                              > They believe by storing their data in tables and having some RI they are
                              > using an RDBMS.[/color]


                              Ah!, but it's "got a SQL engine", you see? Gotta be good... :)

                              [color=blue]
                              > All they have done is found persistent storage for their data which then
                              > is "processed" using nested cursors and procedural languages.[/color]

                              Bingo. They "encapsulat e" that too, in "beans". It's
                              all soooo mnemonic, isn't it?

                              [color=blue]
                              > The _center piece_ of RDBMS: "relational alegbra" ends up as roadkill in
                              > the ditch. 30 years of research and all there is to show for it is that
                              > data is stored in tables.[/color]


                              "Algebra"? What, you now wanna mix religion into this?
                              Narh, let's dumb down the industry and its players:
                              best way of ensuring mediocrity gets a free ride,
                              masquerading as new "technology ".


                              [color=blue]
                              > I should be fine with it.. it does sell hardware.[/color]

                              Of course it does. Wait until MySQL is the only
                              one used: that will open the floodgates.

                              Comment

                              • Serge Rielau

                                #60
                                Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

                                *bigfatgrin*I see we agree :-)

                                Comment

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