Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

**Serge Rielau** · Jun 27 '08, 06:50 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

Noons wrote:

Serge Rielau <srielau@ca.ibm .comwrote in message news:<2tpoheF22 1ps9U1@uni-berlin.de>...

>>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.

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.

... 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

**DA Morgan** · Jun 27 '08, 06:50 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

Comments in-line.

michael newport wrote:

Daniel,
>
in Ingres I wrote 4GL, in Oracle I write PL/SQL

Because you don't know how to write Java in the database?

in Ingres I wrote SQL, in Oracle I write SQL

Because you don't know how to write Java in the database?

in Ingres I ran an overnight batch from a Unix cron job, in Oracle I
schedule a dbms_job

Or dbms_scheduler
Or UNIX cron job
Or AppWorx
Or any one of a large number of other possible solutions.

in Ingres my results went to a database table, in Oracle my results go
to a database table

I'm impressed.

in Ingres I wrote a user parameterized report, in Oracle I write a
user parameterized report

Similarly impressed.

in Ingres I ran the report with a system call, in Oracle I use Oracle
Reports server (with all its nasty bugs)

Then you made a horrible choice of reporting software.

Ingres is free, Oracle is not
>
did I miss something ?
>
Regards
Michael Newport

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)

**Jim Kennedy** · Jun 27 '08, 06:50 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

"Serge Rielau" <srielau@ca.ibm .comwrote in message
news:2tq1noF234 nkoU1@uni-berlin.de...

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

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

**HansF** · Jun 27 '08, 06:50 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

DA Morgan wrote:

>in Ingres I ran the report with a system call, in Oracle I use Oracle
>Reports server (with all its nasty bugs)

>
Then you made a horrible choice of reporting software.
>

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

**michael newport** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

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

**Philip Sherman** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

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:

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

JS · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

DA Morgan <damorgan@x.was hington.eduwrot e in message news:<109825036 5.710337@yasure >...

Rhino wrote:
>

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

>
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.

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.

**HansF** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

JS wrote:

That said, db2 is cheaper, so in my mind you
get more bang for the buck with db2.

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

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/info/ecatalog/en_US/products/index.html

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

**Mikito Harakiri** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

wizofoz2k@yahoo .com.au (Noons) wrote in message news:<73e20c6c. 0410201921.44db 942e@posting.go ogle.com>...

mikharakiri_nos paum@yahoo.com (Mikito Harakiri) wrote in message news:<8a529bb.0 410200902.53af2 4b9@posting.goo gle.com>...

Let's not forget that RDBMS essentially is a SQL execution engine, and

>
Most definitely not. That is a file system.

Are you kidding?

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.

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.

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:

>
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?

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?

**Mikito Harakiri** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

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...

wizofoz2k@yahoo .com.au (Noons) wrote in message

news:<73e20c6c. 0410201921.44db 942e@posting.go ogle.com>...

mikharakiri_nos paum@yahoo.com (Mikito Harakiri) wrote in message

news:<8a529bb.0 410200902.53af2 4b9@posting.goo gle.com>...

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:

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?

>
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?

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.

**DA Morgan** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

michael newport wrote:

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

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.

4. Shared Everything Architecture - equivalent

Nonsense.

5. RAC - equivalent

Pure rubbish. You need to get back on your medication. ;-)

6. DataGuard - equivalent

Send a link.

7. RMAN - equivalent

Not in your wildest imagination.

28. TAF (transparent application failover) - equivalent

Sorry but my contacts at CA say no such technology exists.

8. User defined indexes - same

Provide a link or demonstrate the Ingres syntax.

9. User defined operators - same

Provide a link or demonstrate the Ingres syntax.

10. User defined locking - nice but never needed

Your loss.

11. Domain indexes - nice but never needed

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.

14. Function based indexes - nice but never needed

Your loss.

16. User defined data types - same

In your dreams.

17. Partitioning and Subpartitioning - same

Nonsense.

18. Global Temporary Tables - same

Nonsense.

19. External Tables - same

Nonsense.

20. Index Organized Tables - same

Nonsense.

21. Enterprise level support 7x24x365 - same

For free. You've really got to stop smokin' that stuff.

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 ?

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.

>
26. Packages - like programs ?

You made up your answers to previous questions when you had no idea what
the technology was so why ask a question now?

27. Native compilation into C of PL/SQL – never needed this

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.

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

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)

**DA Morgan** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

JS wrote:

DA Morgan <damorgan@x.was hington.eduwrot e in message news:<109825036 5.710337@yasure >...
>

>>Rhino wrote:
>>
>>

>>>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

>>
>>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.

>
>
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.

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)

**HansF** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

michael newport wrote:

correction you thought that you had made your point...
>
You can also use JAVA on Ingres.

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.)

>
1. Security model – same

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 ...

2. Scalability - same

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.

3. Performance - same

Checked TCP.org - no Ingres in sight. Any suggestions?

4. Shared Everything Architecture - equivalent
5. RAC - equivalent

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."

6. DataGuard - equivalent

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.

7. RMAN - equivalent

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?

28. TAF (transparent application failover) - equivalent

That's usually a function related to the cluster-cordinate failover. TAF
can provide transparent failover, with no need to restart the transaction.

8. User defined indexes - same

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?

9. User defined operators - same
10. User defined locking - nice but never needed

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.

11. Domain indexes - nice but never needed

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)

12. Reverse-key indexes - same

Didn't see that in the online SQL manual as part of the CREATE INDEX
command. Have to take your word for it.

13. Compressed indexes - same

Yup. Finally one that seems similar. With the level of flexibility
described, possibly even better than Oracle's compression.

14. Function based indexes - nice but never needed

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

**Noons** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

Serge Rielau <srielau@ca.ibm .comwrote in message news:<2tqu5gF21 ve94U1@uni-berlin.de>...

They believe by storing their data in tables and having some RI they are
using an RDBMS.

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

All they have done is found persistent storage for their data which then
is "processed" using nested cursors and procedural languages.

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

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.

"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 ".

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

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

**Serge Rielau** · Jun 27 '08, 06:51 PM

Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

*bigfatgrin*I see we agree :-)