Re: Which database?

I'll try to handle all that I can though others will likely do better on some questions.

Markus Barta wrote:
>
> Hello colleagues!
>
> I've got to design/structure a big DB with 100k (k=thousand) to 1000k
> records and about 5 master (address, contact, job,...) and 10 detail tables.
> these DBs will be queried from the web (with coldfusion). Now I would like
> to know if Ishould use informix, oracle or interbase. who has experience
> with any of these DBs and can tell me sth. about:

None of this is massive of complex and any of the commercial and several of the free servers could handle the specs so far. You need to expand the specs to include the features you will need. I suppose the rest is setup to that process.  

> * what are the features of Infomix/Oracle/Interbase
Tough one. Informix for instance has four server products:

o Informix Standard Engine - basic maintenance free server. One process   per user session, no shared information or cache. OS files used so   tables are limited to 2GB on most systems. No variable length data   types (ie varchars & BLOBS).
o Informix Dynamic Server - Informix's basic enterprise engine. Great   performance, tunability, scaleability, etc. Includes variable length   data types, increased indexing, table/database size to 4TB! o Informix Extended Parallel Server - Informix's shared nothing clustered   distributed database server. Databases and even tables can be   distributed across multiple systems on a network with failover servers   and other cluster features. Maximum availability, maximum database size   (essentially unlimited there can be thousands of nodes at 4TB each!) o Informix Dynamic Server 2000 - Informix's ORDBMS (was Universal Data   Option) integrated with IDS. This is Informix's newest flagship server.   Userdefined types, user defined functions/routines, Stored procedures in   C or Java (optional), User defined indexing, External Table Interface to   permit integrating non-Informix and even non-relational data into your   SQL, datablades expand server features, etc. New Connection server   expands scalability to thousands of concurrent users. Foundation 2000   package includes Full text Excalibur Datablade, Java Procedures, and   Informix WEB Datablade with IDS.2000.

Oracle also has several server types and feature sets/versions with their own advantages.

Interbase's claim to fame is versioning. Rather than locking rows and using Isolation levels Interbase creates a new version of an updated row which becomes current when committed. Old versions continue until purged. Trades disk space for complexity and concurrency control.

> * what are the drawbacks of I/O/I

Oracle is older technology with many plugins and add ons.

Informix is not as popular, hard sell to management who see Oracle ads everywhere.

> * why should I use Informix

Best performance, best technology, best scaleability. My opinion of course.

> * why should I use Oracle
> * why should I use Interbase
>
> thanks for any help in advance.
>
> Markus
> psilon_at_yahoo.com

Art S. Kagel Received on Mon Jul 10 2000 - 00:00:00 CEST