Re: Benchmarks was Re: Which one is better? Oracel 9i or DB2 7.2??

> There is not a chance I am going to find a TCP report of any value in 90%
> of these projects. To me they are just another form of marketing hype.

I don't thiok they are mere marketing hype. Yes, they are used for marketing, but the vendors also constantly calibrate their products against them and the benchmarks do comprise some "real world like" queries.

Lets' take a look at materialized views (or AST, indexed views...). Oracle and DB2 broke the TPC-D
benchmark with those. Were they a benchmark special? No, even Microsoft has introduced them despite not playing in TPC-D (and now TPC-R and -H). Also note that often the availability of the system is 6 months after the test because the test uses bleeding edge technology. I would call TPC a sandbox - simplified? yes - but also relevant. Participating in the game means a vendor is serious about this kind of workloads. Who is on top at any given moment is not really the point as long as they are at the top every so often.

Just my 2 cents
Serge

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Serge Rielau
DB2 UDB SQL Compiler Development
IBM Software Lab, Canada