Oracle vs. Informix debate

Hi everyone,

    Recently I changed jobs and was hired on as an Oracle DBA in Denver, CO. About a month before I started, a big debate started about which DBMS to run (since their Oracle contract was almost up for renewal). Some managers were questioning why some of the databases were so slow (and want to migrate some databases away from Ingres also), so they decided to hold a test.

    They decided to benchmark Oracle, Infromix, and DB2 against each other. The results turned out that Informix was roughly 10 times faster than Oracle, and DB2 was only somewhat faster than Oracle. Here's the catch though, both IBM and Informix sent guys out to tune their databases. The Oracle database was only tuned in-house. (Since this test took place before I got here, I had no hand in this). Anyway, it looks like management may be leaning towards Informix, especially after 4 salesman from Informix came here and gave a great marketing speech that any manager would love!

    Any suggestions on papers to read on comparisons, opinions, etc. Is Informix really that much faster? What about 3rd party tools? It seems to me that most tools are written with Oracle in mind, not Informix. And how about company stability? It makes me a little nervous to convert to Informix after watching the stock price of Informix plunge over the past several months down to nearly $4 a share! Plus, they just hired an ORACLE DBA, not an Informix DBA!!!!! (Which makes me wonder if I'll be employed in a few months...) Any other valid points in this argument / debate?

Thanks,

Alan

Alan Aschenbrenner
Oracle DBA
IHS Group Received on Fri Aug 04 2000 - 13:18:08 CDT