Re: How to choose a DB

Mark,

My comments below...

Mark Townsend wrote:
>
> Miguel, Art - comments inline
>
> "Art S. Kagel" wrote:
> >
> > Miguel Cruz wrote:
> > >
> > > Anat Maoz <anatmaoz_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I need to choose a database which serve my server.
>
> [snip]
>
> > > At the moment I'm looking most closely at Informix and Oracle because they
> > > are supported natively (sans-ODBC) by PHP. Key features for our application
> > > include transparent (or near-transparent) clustering and flexible fulltext
> > > indexing across selected fields.
> >
> > The problem is that for both Oracle and Informix your two requirements,
> > transparent cluster support and fulltext indexing, are both supported but by
> > separate products.
>
> By Oracle Cluster Server I presume you mean Oracle8i Parallel Server,
> which adds cluster support to Oracle8i. There is no product called
> Oracle Cluster Server.
>
> > Oracle Cluster Server does not support DataBlades which
> > would be needed for full-text indexing and searching and Oracle 8i does not
> > support clusters.
>
> Incorrect. Full text indexing and searching is provided by the
> interMedia option for Oracle8i. interMedia is fully supported with
> Oracle8i Parallel Server.
>

An optional component.  

> > Actually, it is my understanding that OCS only adds the ability to share
> > disks between cluster members and actually implements spreading a table over
> > cluster members using SYNONYMS and VIEWS UNIONing the various pieces of the
> > table back together.
>
> Incorrect. A single physical table can be accessed by all cluster
> members running Oracle8i Parallel Server instances, in parallel,
> totally independently of how the data is organized. Oracle8i
> Partitioning (or indeed the pseudo partitioning alluded to by Art) is
> not required for Oracle8i Parallel Server. However, Oracle8i
> Partitioning may well make configuration and management easier in an
> Oracle8i Parallel Server environment where you are dealing with large
> data volumes.
>

Yeah but you're still back to using shared disks and probably NFS mounts.  

> Miguel - you mentioned a requirement for transparent or near transparent
> clustering - can I ask you what for ?
>
> If you are looking at clustering for an HA solution, then there are
> easier failover cluster solutions available that don't require either
> Oracle8i Parallel Server or Informix XPS (both of which will cost you an
> arm and a leg in licence cost and possibly deployment). These are nearly
> 100% transparent to your application and are typically database
> independent. Talk to your hardware vendor about these types of failover
> solutions
>
> If you are looking at clustering for scalability, then Oracle8i Parallel
> Server is viable for your needs - but be prepared to have to jump
> through some hoops in the design and implementation of your application.

No hoops for Informix, whether it be XPS or IDS.

For Informix, there's nothing more to be done for an application whether it's on XPS or IDS 7.x. The user is none the wiser, as the engine(s) take care of the nasty details, especially with XPS. You can use Informix's 4GL or whatever to link to the engine, and the engine takes care of the details of bringing back the query. This is a great way to build out a cluster of servers and the user is none the wiser.

On Oracle you get back data one-server-at-a-time ( reading from Oracle docs ) whereas Informix brings back the selected set as one set of data and the user doesn't even know it came from several different servers. Oracle is by far more difficult to deal with when considering clustering as their model increases with complexity the more servers you add to their cluster-f***. Your achillies heel of course is that distributed lock mangler--er manager.

Informix's XPS on the other hand has an unlimited scalability, as the architecture is more current. Oracle hasn't upgraded their engines, in what, 10 years?? The only thing I see updated is the marketing materials.

:-)  

> And if you are trying to deploy a packaged application (PHP ?) then you
> will need to make sure that your packaged application vendor is happy to
> support a clustered solution - it is likely that cluster support will
> require some application level smarts, and not all of them are
> architectured to use a cluster intelligently.
> --

Again, regarding XPS, the end-user and the application developer would never know it was XPS or a single server. Oracle on the other hand forces you to deal with the selected set individually--again reading from Oracle's own docs on their cluster-f*** data warehousing. :-) I have deployed web interaction with XPS and the use never knew the difference if it came from one server or 20.  

Happy New Year Mark, Oracle may be bigger, but only because of the marketing, not because of the technology. Anybody can sell a lot of Chevys, kinda like Microsoft. :-) When you're ready to go with the best then you'll move up from the trailer park of data bases.

Tim

> Regards,
>
> Mark Townsend
 

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