IDS Forum

Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....

Posted By: Art Kagel
Date: Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 7:02 p.m.

In Response To: Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer.... (Fernando Nunes)

First, everyone please note that I did not start this. I simply stated that
there have not been Informix benchmarks in over 14 years and expressed my
opinion that at least part of the reason might be that Informix might show
up DB2. I did not get into the wherefores and did not berate IBM for not
publishing. Now Fernando has opened the door, as attorney's say, so I am
free to comment and I expect that there will be no flack coming back to me
over this post.

Fernando, you ignore the current option that IBM has been selecting over and
over for ten years: No benchmark - worst of all.

No benchmark shows a lack of commitment to the product. Anyone who is
considering Informix is asked "Why are you doing that? IBM isn't supporting
Informix anymore! Look, they haven't even published a benchmark for it!"
Oh, and product benchmarks like the BAAN benchmark several years ago or the
SAP benchmark that Informix published in the mid '90s don't count! Some
say, "But the TCP-C & TPC-E are artificial and don't reflect real world!
Not only that, everyone knows all of the RDBMS vendors use tricks to make
the results look good!" Yet, everyone wants to see the numbers.

The bottom line is if IBM really wants to delight the current Informix user
community and attract new business - if they are not just trying to shut us
all up (and I hope they are not doing so) - if they expect the world to now
take Informix seriously - IBM MUST MUST MUST publish a TCP-C benchmark with
Informix and they have to do it soon. This is no new position for me. I
have held it since the purchase and I have been vocal to all of the IBM
executives on the subject. Why do I say that a benchmark is mandatory?

Let me start by saying that I do believe that IBM is serious about
Informix. Finally! They have no choice. They started this Smarter
Metering, Smarter Monitoring, Smarter Cities, Smarter Planet campaign then
when they started to get inquiries from customers about helping them set
such things up or from users of other databases who have started projects to
make it work which failed or who were struggling with performance problems
and storage overload. When they started looking into what database could
handle the data volume they realized that there is only one, IBM owns it,
and it isn't DB2! Informix with TimeSeries is the only database that can
handle the data volume and do it with as much as 70% less storage than
Oracle or DB2! So, IBM has no choice but to sell Informix now and I am
aware of at least four active projects that IBM is involved in where they
have done just that.

"OK, so, they are selling Informix without a benchmark", you might say.
Well, not really. One of those projects involves five separate databases:
an operational/billing database, a timeseries database, and three levels of
data warehouse. IBM's consultants proposed that Informix be used for all
five. The client has decided to use Oracle for all but the timeseries
server. Why? There's no benchmark. How can they know that Informix will
be able to handle the operational load or perform the analytical queries in
a timely manner? They know how Oracle will perform from other projects.
They have no evidence that Informix isn't just optimized for timeseries
because there are no benchmarks saying otherwise. So IBM sold PVUs for one
server when they could have sold PVUs for five (and that's not counting
replication servers for the operational server).

I don't know if it is Jerry K. or Rob or Arvind or someone else who is so
adament about not benchmarking, but someone needs to change his/her mind,
and fast!

Nuff said!

Art

Art S. Kagel
Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com)
Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions and
do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any other
organization with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or by
inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals
affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the
entities themselves.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Fernando Nunes <domusonline@gmail.com>wrote:

> If any of us put ourselves in the decision shoes, the problem is easy to
> understand and was clearly explained by Jerry.
> Only 1 of three things could happen:
>
> - Same result as DB2
> No one would believe it
>
> - Better
> Bad
>
> -Worse
> Bad
>
> And DB2 has been participating in the TPC-C wars for long.
> Regards.
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:33 PM, Art Kagel <art.kagel@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Informix did not benchmark after about 1996 and IBM has never yet
> > benchmarked Informix. Probably afraid that Informix will show up DB2.
> >
> > Art
> >
> > Art S. Kagel
> > Advanced DataTools (www.advancedatatools.com)
> > Blog: http://informix-myview.blogspot.com/
> >
> > Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that my own opinions are my own opinions
> > and
> > do not reflect on my employer, Advanced DataTools, the IIUG, nor any
> other
> > organization with which I am associated either explicitly, implicitly, or
> > by
> > inference. Neither do those opinions reflect those of other individuals
> > affiliated with any entity with which I am affiliated nor those of the
> > entities themselves.
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 4:18 PM, Jim Cramer <jim-cramer@uiowa.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > > fyi:
> > >
> > > Sadly enough, I cannot find Informix in any of the TPC Results
> > > on that web site.
> > >
> > > So, either the Informix Server did not make the top 10 in any
> > > of the categories, or they did not participate in those
> > > benchmarks.
> > >
> > > Jim
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of
> > > jack.parker4@verizon.net
> > > Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 2:43 PM
> > > To: ids@iiug.org
> > > Subject: Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer.... [23260]
> > >
> > > I suggest the TPC benchmarks.
> > >
> > > http://www.tpc.org
> > >
> > > j.
> > >
> > > Mar 31, 2011 06:38:05 PM, ids@iiug.org wrote:
> > >
> > > ===========================================
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Can anyone point me to a Public-Domain Data Base Benchmark Program
> > > that has been ported to both Windows and to Linux and which I can
> > > use to benchmark IDS vs. MSSQLServer?
> > >
> > > I do not need to make any kind of exhaustive comparison of the two
> > > types of servers, and I will take into account platform differences
> > > that could skew the results one way or another. And it does not
> > > have to be designed for Data Warehouse benchmarking of large (Terabyte)
> > > dbs. Our largest one is about 10GB. In fact, I would prefer to
> > > benchmark OLTP performance instead of Data Warehouse performance.
> > >
> > > We have:
> > > 64-bit IDS 11.7 on x86_64 AMD
> > >
> > > and
> > >
> > > 64-bit MSSQLserver 2008 R2 on x86_64 AMD
> > >
> > > Both are VMs. I can give both more than adequate
> > > memory, disk space, and cpu/core resources for the
> > > test.
> > >
> > > Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > >
> > > Jim Cramer
> > > Database Administrator and
> > > Applications Developer III
> > > University of Iowa
> > > College of Engineering
> > > Engineering Computer Systems Support
> > > 1256 SC
> > > Iowa City, Iowa 52245
> > > (319)-335-5757
> > > jim-cramer@uiowa.edu
> > > jcramer@engineering.uiowa.edu
> > > http://css.engineering.uiowa.edu
> > > http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu
> > > http://www.uiowa.edu
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> ****************************************************************************
> > > ***
> > > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> ****************************************************************************
> > > ***
> > > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
> *******************************************************************************
> > > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --20cf307abcbd0d4921049fce0cc9
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> *******************************************************************************
> > Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.
> >
> >
>
> --
> Fernando Nunes
> Portugal
>
> http://informix-technology.blogspot.com
> My email works... but I don't check it frequently...
>
> --0015174c34ae0ff87c049fce1ba8
>
>
>
> *******************************************************************************
> Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.
>
>

--20cf307f32924f6872049fcf48a8

Messages In This Thread

• need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLServer 2008
  Jim Cramer -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 2:37 p.m.
  • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLServer
    Alexandre Marini -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 3:01 p.m.
    • RE: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
      Jim Cramer -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 4:17 p.m.
      • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
        Art Kagel -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 4:50 p.m.
  • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLServer
    jack.parker4@verizon.net -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 3:43 p.m.
    • RE: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
      Jim Cramer -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 4:18 p.m.
      • Re: RE: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer
        jack.parker4@verizon.net -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 4:41 p.m.
    • RE: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
      Jim Cramer -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 4:18 p.m.
      • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
        Fernando Nunes -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 5:01 p.m.
      • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
        Art Kagel -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 5:33 p.m.
        • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
          Fernando Nunes -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 5:38 p.m.
          • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
            Art Kagel -- Thursday, 31 March 2011, at 7:02 p.m.
  • Re: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLServer
    Lester Knutsen -- Saturday, 2 April 2011, at 1:52 p.m.
    • RE: need tool to compare IDS 11.7 vs. MSSQLSer....
      jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Saturday, 2 April 2011, at 5:02 p.m.

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