Mogens wrote from IBM whitepapers: "If you want to have a portable
application, you should probably choose one of the category II databases . .
. "

I nearly fell off my chair laughing. There are some political leaders that
could use a marketing person with that finesse. Thanks for brightening a
Monday morning.

Dennis Williams
DBA, 80%OCP, 100% DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 12:09 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L


Cost is the easy one. They run comparable to Microsoft or thereabout. 
They have various options I haven't looked at yet, that might make them 
more expensive than that. The DB2 on mainframes and the DB2 on Unix, for 
instance, were written by different teams. Which might explain why they 
didn't port the time-based instrumentation from the mainframe 
environment to the Unix port. So yeah, you probably can't just take code 
and move it. They have a pretty good porting tool between Oracle and 
DB2, though. We thought that was rather neat when we ran it against one 
of our customer's database definitions. The PL/SQL conversion came out 
alright, too, although there of course are things they can't do and vice 
versa.

Broadly speaking, I think you can divide the databases of the world into 
three categories:

1. Oracle, with very good locking strategies, very good read consistency 
model, very good performance measurement instrumentation (time-based).
2. Other relational databases such as DB2, Sybase, SQL Server, Informix, 
etc. where they all share the same (to us Oracle-techies) strange 
locking philosophy, the same consistency model where you have to code 
more, and no wait-interface.
3. The rest.

re 2: The locking philosophy difference means that you can still have 
readers block writers and writers block readers, unless you specifically 
handle how to do it on the transactional level. This explains why 
cloning databases for reporting purposes is so popular with other 
databases compared to the Oracle world :).

IBM has pointed out in various whitepapers something which to us doesn't 
make sense, but which might make sense to others: If you want to have a 
portable application, you should probably choose one of the category II 
databases, since they're all pretty much alike in their behaviour on the 
important aspects of locking and read consistency. If you have to go to 
or from Oracle to or from another database, you'd have to change code a 
good deal or live with non-optimal conditions after the migration.

Mogens


Tom Ryan wrote:

>have you used DB2? How does it compare to Oracle? Ive seen tom kyte write
>that each platform that DB2 runs on is in essence a different database and
>you cant take code from one platform and move it to another.
>
>are the features comparable? what about cost?
>----- Original Message -----
>To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 8:54 AM
>
>
>  
>
>>VERY interesting. They refused to do site licensing at a 20000
>>installation here. Thank you for this tip.
>>
>>Rachel Carmichael wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Oracle does site licensing... but only if you are a very very large
>>>corporation. Citibank (when I worked there) had one. The company I work
>>>for now has one.
>>>
>>>So I don't ask "do we have a license" when I want to install a new
>>>version of Oracle, even if it is a new platform
>>>
>>>One of the few things that is easier working in a rigid corporate
>>>environment
>>>
>>>
>>>--- Mogens_Nørgaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>There's one thing that IBM can do, which Microsoft and Oracle can't
>>>>offer: They do site licenses as well as cpu and user licensing. That
>>>>just gives them an incredible advantage to management and others who
>>>>can
>>>>stop thinking about whether they should buy another server, move
>>>>stuff
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>from one server to the other, etc. I can't believe Oracle and
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Microsoft
>>>>are not doing it (I think I can guess, but it's still not good).
>>>>
>>>>Mladen Gogala wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>I believe that the answer to Stephane's question is obvious:
>>>>>Oracle 10g will cost 10 grands/ CPU. That's where the letter "g"
>>>>>is coming from.
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>Mladen Gogala
>>>>>Oracle DBA
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>>DENNIS WILLIAMS
>>>>>Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 5:30 PM
>>>>>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Stephane
>>>>>  We've been very excited about Oracle Standard Edition. Helped
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>stave off
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>the interest in MS SQL. Given the budget pressures at many
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>organizations,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>I'm surprised we don't hear more about this alternative.
>>>>>
>>>>>Dennis Williams
>>>>>DBA, 80%OCP, 100% DBA
>>>>>Lifetouch, Inc.
>>>>>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>>Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 4:09 PM
>>>>>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>>We're an Oracle shop, over 140 Oracle instances.
>>>>>Today, architecture has chosen IBM DB2 for BI projects.
>>>>>The next step I guessed will be to choose DB2 for the new
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>transactionnal
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>applications also.
>>>>>
>>>>>IBM offers DB2 at 25% less than Oracle.
>>>>>
>>>>>I wonder if Oracle 10G will come with a new pricing structure ?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Stephane Paquette
>>>>>Administrateur de bases de donnees
>>>>>Database Administrator
>>>>>Standard Life
>>>>>www.standardlife.ca
>>>>>Tel. (514) 499-7999 7470 and (514) 925-7187
>>>>>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>><mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
>>>>--
>>>>Author: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Mogens_N=F8rgaard?=
>>>> INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>
>>>>Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>__________________________________
>>>Do you Yahoo!?
>>>Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
>>>http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>--
>>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
>>--
>>Author: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Mogens_N=F8rgaard?=
>>  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>Fat City Network Services    -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
>>San Diego, California        -- Mailing list and web hosting services
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>>also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>

-- 
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-- 
Author: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Mogens_N=F8rgaard?=
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-- 
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Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
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