Re: Trying to decide whether to support DB2 or Oracle

I chose DB2 UDB Enterprise Edition because it was a quarter of Oracle's universal power unit price for Oracle 8i. Our server hardware is a mix of Sun servers and Linux boxes, so Microsoft SQL Server wasn't an option. We were previously running Informix UDS 9 (forced migration from Illustra), but Informix wanted twice what IBM wanted to license Informix for our new, large Sun server. If I had determined that DB2 possessed a fatal flaw that would keep our web site from operating, my CEO would have had no problem paying the extra bucks for Oracle, but IBM easily met all of our developers' requirements. When it came to an upgrade path, I was especially impressed by IBM's white paper on a dual Sun E10K cluster running DB2, which was way more processing power than we'd ever need.

Going into the decision-making process, I really wanted Oracle. I wanted to become an OCP DBA and walk into any of a dozen data shops downtown and command a ridiculously high salary. The problem was, Oracle came off to my peers and my CEO as being arrogant, since Oracle only sent a local reseller with no marketing materials and no technical person. We sat around the conference table dumbfounded as this reseller yammered on about licensing details and barely even touched on Oracle's strengths, or why they were so damned expensive. To make things worse, IBM was scheduled to deliver their pitch at our site the very next hour.

This may not be a very big secret, but IBM is *hungry* to sell DB2. Four IBMers showed up from the downtown branch office, including a certified DB2 DBA. The energetic sales rep who led the demo had Powerpoint slides and stapled hardcopies that were less than two weeks old. Our developers fired off several questions, and many were satisfied with the answers. Our CEO saw the dollar signs and made it clear to me that all things being equal, he'd rather see us running DB2.

We're up and running with DB2, and it's been particularly easy to set up. Our beefy new server made it possible to get up and running quickly without worrying about performance tuning from day one.

My company could be characterized as a fence-sitter, and DB2 snatched us up with their attentive service and attractive pricing. Unless Oracle ditches their abysmal UPU licensing scheme, DB2 could conceivably flip enough fence sitters over to DB2. I an just a DBA, so you can take my views with a grain of salt.

Fred Received on Tue May 01 2001 - 23:49:37 CDT