Re: Is Ingres the wave of the future?

In article <23n1ph$f78_at_news.mic.ucla.edu> ddruker_at_agsm.ucla.edu (Daniel Druker) writes:
>In article <CB79C4.6r0_at_nvl.army.mil> bajones@sparta (Ebeth Jones) writes:
>[Stuff about Oracle being about to go out of business and Ingres
>conquering the DBMS market]
>
>Elizabeth,
>
...

>I think Ingres has the most uncertain future of the big 4. Will it
>become the ASK database, an embedded product for their manufacturing
>products ? Why is ASK porting their tools to Oracle if they already
>own such as great DBMS ? I think there are lots of hard questions
>to be asked. The local reps for both of these and the other DBMS
>companies should be able to help you.
>
>Good Luck,
>
>- Dan

        Elizabeth,

	  Here's my 2 cents. Let me note that I am a former ASK
	employee, but my comments may be somewhat out of date and I
	make no representation as to their accuracy.

	  Before I go on, let me just try to answer one of Dan's
	questions above. ASK is porting their tools to Oracle (and
	other databases as well), because the ASK division is an
	APPLICATION SOFTWARE company. To the ASK side of the business,
	a database is a commodity just like hardware. It would be
	stupid to tie the application to just one RDMS and reduce their
	own market, especially when the application was designed up
	front to be database independent.

	  Here are some general comments on Ingres. In a nutshell, the
	common wisdom is that Oracle has the biggest market share,
	Sybase has the best performance, Informix has the best engine,
	and Ingres has the best tools. Ingres is also known for haveing
	the WORST engine. By engine, I mean the core part of the
	product that processes SQL. Last time I used it, Ingres still
	did not support outer joins or referential integrity
	constraints (although they were one of the first to implement
	stored procedures and triggers).

	  In terms of database administration, however, Ingres is the
	clear winner. If were running an MIS department, I wouldn't
	let an Oracle rep within 50 feet. An instance of the server for
	each database? Users assigned to specific tablespaces? A bunch
	of scripts to manually create the system catalog views for
	every database? Having to actually query system catalog tables
	and insert rows to do certain tasks? Oracle system
	administration is a joke. On the other hand, it gives you more
	physical control over the files that implement the database
	than any others I've seen.

	  In general, the Ingres administration tools are far superior
	to what the rest of the big 4 has to offer. Their 4GL is nicer
	as well.

	  In terms of the market share comments, I agree; Oracle is not
	going away. It has been and still is the market leader. Ingres
	is the market leader in Europe; their U.S. market seems to be
	falling off.

	  As Dan indicated, there are many technical tradeoffs as well
	as company stability issues to consider. I believe
	standardization is the goal driving your system administrator,
	and it is a very worthy one, especially since system
	administration is the task that is usually drastically
	different between different databases. You have both Oracle and
	Ingres in house now, how are they used?  Do you have problems
	administering Oracle?  Do you have problems with Ingres' speed
	or limited SQL? Are a lot of your people more familiar with
	Oracle or Ingres development tools?  Do you develop X-Windows
	applications (no one can touch Ingres' Windows4GL) (yet)?  You
	can't get these answers from a sales presentation; only from
	actually using the database enough to discover its
	personality.

			Good luck,
				Vic