Re: Company thought DB2 will be better than Oracle.

From: Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 22:45:16 -0700
Message-ID: <1063431901.200600_at_yasure>


Comments interspersed.

Larry Edelstein wrote:

>Daniel,
>
>I don't have any problem with you expressing your opinion. But I do have to set
>the record straight.
>
>What lack of security? DB2 uses the underlying OS for authentication security
>and has the same internal object security that other rdbmses have. Can you
>provide more specifics on what you mean by this and how it manifests itself in
>the form of any issues?
>
My point was not that DB2 was unsecure on mainframes and UNIX ... but rather on Windows. Because, as demonstrated every week by a bunch of teenagers and 20 year olds ... the O/S itself is insecure.

>Plenty of DB2 training classes. Take a look at the IBM Education schedules.
>
Exactly. Now try to find them from third-party training facilities here in Washington State, for example. Or from a community college or a university? And books? Try Amazon.com for example ... 245 DB2 books and how many relate to Windows? Then try Oracle ... 1128. Do you see the issue? And with Oracle there is a single code base an all operating systems so one book covers all platforms. Something not true with DB2.

>There are some very good DB2 books published on DB2. Do we need tons of them by
>different authors each serving the same purpose?
>
The reference in my post was to DB2 on Windows. Don't try to make it into something it was not intended to be.

>What makes you think that you need a compiler on a production box? I do not
>think that is accurate.
>
 From my experience it is. Or do you run your databases without procedures?

>And as far as the third-party tools and applications, I can't believe you took a
>swat at that one. There were something like > 40000 last time I checked.
>
Third party means from companies other than IBM. And once again my reference was to the Windows platform only.

>Your points are sometimes well-taken. With all due respect, these had some
>significant inaccuracies.
>
>Larry Edelstein
>
>
>
Please reconsider. I am a DB2 user so I'm not slamming the product. But it has its fair share of weaknesses just as all products do. And I just think it is unfair to slam those that disagree with you as greedy DBAs that only care about their jobs. Though, as I've also posted ... the mortgage and putting the kids through college comes light-years before product loyalty. Neither IBM, nor Oracle, nor Microsoft is writing checks to me so I'm still responsible for the balance in the checkbook.

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
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Received on Sat Sep 13 2003 - 07:45:16 CEST

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