Comments below marked with ###.
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Tedder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 8:38 AM
Subject: DB2 vs. Oracle
> The database itself is on an OS/390 mainframe and the front-end is a
website based on Perl CGI scripts. Oracle required that the client software
be installed, configured, and that a text file be updated manually. Oracle
tables also do not resize themselves dynamically and our data is very
dynamic, making this a critical need. Individual Table size requirements
are highly unpredictable--growing and shrinking by wide margins in different
tables each day.
### Oracle tables will grow as necessary as long as you define the storage
parameters correctly. Hopefully you at least know the upper bounds of your
data size or you may overflow you disk physical limits. The only ways to
schrink a table's storage are to TRUNCATE the table or DELETE it and then
CREATE it again.
### If the table sizes only vary by a few tens of megabytes from day to day,
you'd be better off just sizing the tables for the maximum size. If they
vary by gigabytes, maybe you could combine some of the input streams so
fewer tables are affected.
### If the text file you are refering to is tnsnames.ora, you can use the
'ifile=' directive in the client tnsnames.ora file to point to a central
copy. You could also use Oracle Names to manage database network names.
DBD::Oracle also accepts connect() DSNs in the form
"dbi:Oracle:host=$host;sid=$inst" which bypasses tnsnames.ora and Oracle
Names completely.
> What all is involved with installing and configuring the drivers and Perl
DBI modules for DB2? Do the whole clients need to be installed as with
Oracle? Do I have to explicitly define each connection I will be making in
config files for it? (That requirement also prevents us from using Oracle
for another project--if DB2 works better, we'll be able to get rid of Oracle
on the mainframe and migrate it to Solaris for the systems that still
require it).
### I suspect you will have the same problems with DB2. How can you connect
to a database without indicating _somewhere_ how to find it.
