Re: Oracle vs Informix comparison

peggy <ptsui_at_aptnet.com> wrote:

:HI everybody:
 

:NOTE: this is being posted on behalf of someone else.
: ----------------------------------------------
 

:We are in the middle of planning the implementation of a new
:enterprise system for our company with approximately: 1500 users +
:including various remote locations on the WAN such as it is.
 

:Most of our usage will be transaction based namely select, insert and
:updates. No Warehousing yet at this stage.
 

:How do Oracle and Informix stack up in terms of:
:- number of concurrent users

Informix is probably better on exactly the same hardware.

:- stability of their RDBMS servers

Probably not very different.

:- stability of their connectivity components
Probably not very different.

:- standard SQL

What do you mean? Do you intend to use standard SQL and nothing else? Very few do that. If you do they are both claiming to support the same standard level. Otherwise Informix is with their new Universal Server very far in front. So far that there is realy little comparison.

:- Replication and syncronization capabilities to remote sites
See other discussion in this thread.
The conclusion seems to me to be that Informix has a much simpler and cleaner design that should lead to much less maintenance problems and the same or better performance.

:- Level of difficulty in maintainig and supporting the Oracle server vs.
:Informix server

Traditionally Informix have been significantly simpler on this account. It probably still is.

:- Learning curve associated with the above products for DBA and sql
:users

See above.

:- the kind of support to expect from their support staff or do we have
:to depend
: on the net to answer most of our questions
The support from Informix is simple outstanding. Some may tell you otherwise, but this is our experience, and I think it can be duplicated by anyone if you understand how their support organisation works. If you have any problems your support call can easily be escalated, and you are the one to do that - not Informix (although they can of course also).

:- How often do we run into bugs in their software
Probably not very different.

:Please excuse my ignorance and if possible please spare the flames.
:Also please send all responses directly to my e-mail: iac_at_frc.com

:Thanks a lot. All positive feedback is appreciated and if requested will
:summarize
:and post it to the requested newsgroups.

For a technical comparison with some errors in Informix's disfavor (particularly when considdering their latest releases - OnLine DSA 7.21 and Universal Server) you might want to look at: http://www.dbms.mfi.com/9611d52.html

One point from this comparison: It says Oracle have only forward type cursors while Informix have (and has allways had) true scrolling cursors. If this is true I would have had significant problems if I used Oracle. Of course you can allways implement scrolling "cursors" at the application level, but it isn't quite the same thing.

If the comparison had included the Informix Universal Server it would have looked quite different.

Nils.Myklebust_at_idg.no
NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company
The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org Received on Sun Dec 08 1996 - 00:00:00 CET