DB2 vs Oracle

[Bob Miles]

We are doing a comparison of DB2 and Oracle to replace our Informix
database runing SAP. I have found some good white papers on why to
select Oracle vs DB2, but have not found some good reasons to select
DB2 rather than Oracle.

If anyone can point me to a good source of DB2 pluses over Oracle, I
would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Bob

[Blair Adamache]

SAP and Oracle are competitors in the ERP applications business, so
their cooperation is sort of a shotgun marriage.

DB2 and SAP have lots of excellent integration. See:
[url]http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/partners/ae1partners/sap/[/url]

Specifically the benchmark data links off that page.

Bob Miles wrote:

> We are doing a comparison of DB2 and Oracle to replace our Informix
> database runing SAP. I have found some good white papers on why to
> select Oracle vs DB2, but have not found some good reasons to select
> DB2 rather than Oracle.
>
> If anyone can point me to a good source of DB2 pluses over Oracle, I
> would appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob

[Larry]

See [url]http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/highlights/[/url]

Larry Edelstein

Bob Miles wrote:

> We are doing a comparison of DB2 and Oracle to replace our Informix
> database runing SAP. I have found some good white papers on why to
> select Oracle vs DB2, but have not found some good reasons to select
> DB2 rather than Oracle.
>
> If anyone can point me to a good source of DB2 pluses over Oracle, I
> would appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob

[aixquery]

[email]bobnwendy@attbi.com[/email] (Bob Miles) wrote in message news:<3f57db0f.1948671@netnews.comcast.net>...

> We are doing a comparison of DB2 and Oracle to replace our Informix
> database runing SAP. I have found some good white papers on why to
> select Oracle vs DB2, but have not found some good reasons to select
> DB2 rather than Oracle.
>
> If anyone can point me to a good source of DB2 pluses over Oracle, I
> would appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob

Bob

we run v. large number of boxes with SAP/DB2. Its not as common as
Oracle/SAP of course , so one factor is the getting people with the
right skillset ( if you are xtraining its not too big a deal ).

I think the SAP DB2 support is good, even though the bias in SAP is
understandably to Oracle/SAP, there are things now such as the site
below
[url]http://www.sap-db2.de/[/url]
which is non SAP official but is moderated by SAP DB2 people. It
should give you a flavour of some of the issues.

There are definitely more utilities delivered with SAP for Oracle than
for DB2 - there is no "sapdba" menu system to do maintenance tasks for
instance. Also some SAP products may still first be supported on
Oracle. But if your site is comfortable with Informix under SAP I
don't think you'll find DB2 under SAP any problem.

Db2 shouldn't lose on cost, though depending on the salespeople,
Oracle may match it.

HTHs

[Erik Hendrix]

Hey Bob,

We're using UDB with SAP and I have to say, no complaints. And within SAP
the monitoring for the database has been heavily improved for UDB compared
to Oracle or so. Especially from 4.6C hotpack 37 onwards.
You might also get better support to move from Informix to UDB since both
are now from IBM.

I can't say how the relationship between Oracle and SAP is now, but not too
long ago SAP and IBM put together some kind of partnership to go after small
businesses. I've also read somewhere that SAP will prefer UDB over Oracle.
Nothing official here offcourse, just some reading from the past.

"Bob Miles" <bobnwendy@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:3f57db0f.1948671@netnews.comcast.net...

>
> We are doing a comparison of DB2 and Oracle to replace our Informix
> database runing SAP. I have found some good white papers on why to
> select Oracle vs DB2, but have not found some good reasons to select
> DB2 rather than Oracle.
>
> If anyone can point me to a good source of DB2 pluses over Oracle, I
> would appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob

[Mark A]

> Hey Bob,

>
> We're using UDB with SAP and I have to say, no complaints. And within SAP
> the monitoring for the database has been heavily improved for UDB compared
> to Oracle or so. Especially from 4.6C hotpack 37 onwards.
> You might also get better support to move from Informix to UDB since both
> are now from IBM.
>
> I can't say how the relationship between Oracle and SAP is now, but not

too

> long ago SAP and IBM put together some kind of partnership to go after

small

> businesses. I've also read somewhere that SAP will prefer UDB over Oracle.
> Nothing official here offcourse, just some reading from the past.
>

IBM uses SAP internally for it's worldwide Manufacturing and Fulfillment
(Order Entry) systems. IBM has spent well over 100 million on SAP licenses,
and this has helped to cement the relationship between IBM and SAP. Just
like any other customer, these SAP software licenses have to be renewed
every 4 years or so, which will be additional revenue to SAP from IBM.

Obviously, the agreement was that IBM would use DB2 for its SAP
installations, and that SAP would make DB2 compatibility with SAP software a
high priority.

[Daniel Morgan]

Bob Miles wrote:

>We are doing a comparison of DB2 and Oracle to replace our Informix
>database runing SAP. I have found some good white papers on why to
>select Oracle vs DB2, but have not found some good reasons to select
>DB2 rather than Oracle.
>
>If anyone can point me to a good source of DB2 pluses over Oracle, I
>would appreciate it.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Bob
>
>

Well if it helps you at all ... Microsoft runs SAP on Oracle.

But to be perfectly even-handed both DB2 and Oracle are just fine as the
database underlying SAP and the differences between them are not, in and
of themselves, sufficiently pursuasive to move anyone one way or the other.

When spending as much money as these systems cost ... the differences
are insignificant.
If performance and scalability were significantly different no-one would
be arguing these factors.

Concentrate on where the money for these systems is really spent ... on
personnel resources and training. Examine your enterprise for what skill
sets you have in-house, the availability of resources available for hire
or on contract, the availability of training, and the availability of
training materials.

You can save $20,000 or lose a few seconds of CPU and never really
notice. But find yourself unable to hire a decent staff of DBAs,
developers, or SysAdmins and you're in a world of hurt.

--
Daniel Morgan
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp[/url]
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp[/url]
[email]damorgan@x.washington.edu[/email]
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

[Database Guy]

Daniel Morgan <damorgan@exxesolutions.com> wrote in message news:<1062811287.368062@yasure>...

> Concentrate on where the money for these systems is really spent ... on
> personnel resources and training. Examine your enterprise for what skill
> sets you have in-house, the availability of resources available for hire
> or on contract, the availability of training, and the availability of
> training materials.
>
> You can save $20,000 or lose a few seconds of CPU and never really
> notice. But find yourself unable to hire a decent staff of DBAs,
> developers, or SysAdmins and you're in a world of hurt.

I claim no knowledge of SAP or the relative costs of staff, but surely
in the case of a package migration from Informix to another database
you are shouldn't need any developers - aren't we essentially just
talking DBMS installation and configuration, data export, data import,
go? Would have thought a knowledge of SAP might be the overriding
skill.

Therefore the fact that one DBMS is half the cost of another may be
quite significant.

Two or three DBA's can be trained in either DB2 or Oracle as needs be
- at many sites these days, DBA's already support multiple DBMS's.


DG

[Daniel Morgan]

Comments interspersed.

Database Guy wrote:

>Daniel Morgan <damorgan@exxesolutions.com> wrote in message news:<1062811287.368062@yasure>...
>
>
>

>>Concentrate on where the money for these systems is really spent ... on
>>personnel resources and training. Examine your enterprise for what skill
>>sets you have in-house, the availability of resources available for hire
>>or on contract, the availability of training, and the availability of
>>training materials.
>>
>>You can save $20,000 or lose a few seconds of CPU and never really
>>notice. But find yourself unable to hire a decent staff of DBAs,
>>developers, or SysAdmins and you're in a world of hurt.
>>
>>

>
>I claim no knowledge of SAP or the relative costs of staff, but surely
>in the case of a package migration from Informix to another database
>you are shouldn't need any developers - aren't we essentially just
>talking DBMS installation and configuration, data export, data import,
>go? Would have thought a knowledge of SAP might be the overriding
>skill.
>

Not in my experience. I've yet to see the install of SAP, PeopleSoft,
Baan, or Oracle that didn't require customizations. And often well into
six to eight figures worth.

>Therefore the fact that one DBMS is half the cost of another may be
>quite significant.
>

If the price difference were 50% I'd agree. But add up the essentials:
hardware, operating sytem, database, security layer such as Tivoli,
Veritas, the SAP software itself, etc. etc. and you can't find a 50%
difference between any of the major RDBMS products.

In fact DB2 + Tivoli is pretty much a wash against Oracle when one is
bean counting. And I can't imagine anyone wanting to run SAP without
some pretty hefty security. So you'll not find your 50%: You'll be lucky
to find 5% unless your CFO has some religious conviction against
negotiating.

>Two or three DBA's can be trained in either DB2 or Oracle as needs be
>- at many sites these days, DBA's already support multiple DBMS's.
>
>
>DG
>
>

I agree that many sites have DBAs supporting multiple databases. I've
been one of them at one time or another working with DB2, Informix,
Ingres, Sybase, Oracle, Teradata and a few I'm too embarrased to
mention. But that's not the point. The point is finding competent
resources in the OP's geographical region. There is a lot more to being
a DBA than backup and restore. Well ... at least to being a good one.

--
Daniel Morgan
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp[/url]
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp[/url]
[email]damorgan@x.washington.edu[/email]
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

[Bob Miles]

After reading the responses to my posting and talking to reps from IBM
and Oracle, I agree that Daniel Morgan is right that either database
system will work just fine with SAP R3. On the TPC web site I found a
TPC-C result using the same hardware for the database server (a 32
processor IBM p690) for both DB2 UDB V8.1 and Oracle 10g with less
than a 0.6% difference between the database systems.

For warehouse systems, which we will also be using, I would lean
toward Oracle for the range partitioning and bitmap indexes. The
range partitioning does add additional work for the DBA, but is faster
when dropping large chunks of data.

I do have a bias toward Oracle since I know it quite well since I have
worked with it for several years and I am a certified Oracle DBA.
What causes me to now to lean toward DB2 is that there seems to be
less probability of outsourcing of the administration function to
India.

[Mark A]

"Bob Miles" <bobnwendy@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:3f691111.111814093@netnews.comcast.net...

>
> After reading the responses to my posting and talking to reps from IBM
> and Oracle, I agree that Daniel Morgan is right that either database
> system will work just fine with SAP R3. On the TPC web site I found a
> TPC-C result using the same hardware for the database server (a 32
> processor IBM p690) for both DB2 UDB V8.1 and Oracle 10g with less
> than a 0.6% difference between the database systems.
>
> For warehouse systems, which we will also be using, I would lean
> toward Oracle for the range partitioning and bitmap indexes. The
> range partitioning does add additional work for the DBA, but is faster
> when dropping large chunks of data.
>
> I do have a bias toward Oracle since I know it quite well since I have
> worked with it for several years and I am a certified Oracle DBA.
> What causes me to now to lean toward DB2 is that there seems to be
> less probability of outsourcing of the administration function to
> India.
>

I don't know why you think bitmap indexing is so important. If IBM thought
it was important, they would use it. I don't think that most DBA's really
understand the underlying architectures well enough to understand which is
better, especially since the indexes are implemented differently (even for
b-trees) in both products. The best way to evaluate performance is via a
benchmark.

As previously mentioned in another post, IBM uses SAP internally and has
already spent over a $100 million in SAP licenses (not including hundreds of
millions more for implementation), all implemented on various DB2 platforms.
SAP and IBM have a close alliance and commitment towards each other.
Obviously, Oracle will also work fine with SAP, even if Oracle's ERP
business (and aspirations) make them less than friendly some times.

[Daniel Morgan]

Comments interspersed.

Mark A wrote:

>"Bob Miles" <bobnwendy@attbi.com> wrote in message
>news:3f691111.111814093@netnews.comcast.net...
>
>

>><snipped>
>>
>>

>I don't know why you think bitmap indexing is so important. If IBM thought
>it was important, they would use it.
>

I don't know why you think stability, security, and scalability are
important. If Microsoft thought
they were important, they'd use them. Sorry for the derisive laughter
but the same can be said of
every feature in every product on the market sold by any company for any
purpose.

Surely you can just be honest and acknowledge that there are things that
product A does that product
B doesn't do and that some customers might find them of value. If the
purpose of these groups is
brain-dead weasel marketing have at it. But if the point of these groups
is to be objective and fact-based
it seems to me that integrity dictates that sometimes we acknowledge
that this product or that has a weakness.
I challenge anyone to name any product that doesn't have weaknesses.
They all do. Get over it!

> I don't think that most DBA's really
>understand the underlying architectures well enough to understand which is
>better, especially since the indexes are implemented differently (even for
>b-trees) in both products. The best way to evaluate performance is via a
>benchmark.
>

That is absolutely untrue. From my experience every professional and
product has its slouches. But the
vast majority of DB2 DBAs I've worked with have been knowledgeable and
professional. And the same
can be said for those working in Oracle, Informix, and Sybase (got to
leave a little room to diss. MS again).

>As previously mentioned in another post, IBM uses SAP internally and has
>already spent over a $100 million in SAP licenses (not including hundreds of
>millions more for implementation), all implemented on various DB2 platforms.
>SAP and IBM have a close alliance and commitment towards each other.
>Obviously, Oracle will also work fine with SAP, even if Oracle's ERP
>business (and aspirations) make them less than friendly some times.
>

And as mentioned previously Microsoft usess SAP internally and has
decided to use Oracle.

Again sorry for the laughter but lets get real. Either product will
suffice for SAP. If the in-house expertise is with
Oracle's architecture that is probably the best choice for that one
particular customer. If he'd said DB2 I'd say
exactly the opposite. But if the fear, as stated, is a job being
off-shored ... that's not likely to happen with
accounting records unless the OP's company is planning on going out of
business soon.

--
Daniel Morgan
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp[/url]
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp[/url]
[email]damorgan@x.washington.edu[/email]
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

[Larry Edelstein]

Daniel Morgan wrote:

>> I challenge anyone to name any product that doesn't have weaknesses.

They all do. Get over it!

In that case Daniel, can you list ten weaknesses of Oracle's 9i database
on this NG, and would you be willing to cross post them to the Oracle NG
also?

Larry Edelstein

> Comments interspersed.
>
> Mark A wrote:
>

>> "Bob Miles" <bobnwendy@attbi.com> wrote in message
>> news:3f691111.111814093@netnews.comcast.net...
>>

>> > <snipped>
>> >

>> I don't know why you think bitmap indexing is so important. If IBM
>> thought
>> it was important, they would use it.
>>

> I don't know why you think stability, security, and scalability are
> important. If Microsoft thought
> they were important, they'd use them. Sorry for the derisive laughter
> but the same can be said of
> every feature in every product on the market sold by any company for
> any purpose.
>
> Surely you can just be honest and acknowledge that there are things
> that product A does that product
> B doesn't do and that some customers might find them of value. If the
> purpose of these groups is
> brain-dead weasel marketing have at it. But if the point of these
> groups is to be objective and fact-based
> it seems to me that integrity dictates that sometimes we acknowledge
> that this product or that has a weakness.
> I challenge anyone to name any product that doesn't have weaknesses.
> They all do. Get over it!
>
>

>> I don't think that most DBA's really
>> understand the underlying architectures well enough to understand
>> which is
>> better, especially since the indexes are implemented differently
>> (even for
>> b-trees) in both products. The best way to evaluate performance is
>> via a
>> benchmark.
>>

> That is absolutely untrue. From my experience every professional and
> product has its slouches. But the
> vast majority of DB2 DBAs I've worked with have been knowledgeable and
> professional. And the same
> can be said for those working in Oracle, Informix, and Sybase (got to
> leave a little room to diss. MS again).
>

>> As previously mentioned in another post, IBM uses SAP internally and
>> has
>> already spent over a $100 million in SAP licenses (not including
>> hundreds of
>> millions more for implementation), all implemented on various DB2
>> platforms.
>> SAP and IBM have a close alliance and commitment towards each other.
>> Obviously, Oracle will also work fine with SAP, even if Oracle's ERP
>> business (and aspirations) make them less than friendly some times.
>>

> And as mentioned previously Microsoft usess SAP internally and has
> decided to use Oracle.
>
> Again sorry for the laughter but lets get real. Either product will
> suffice for SAP. If the in-house expertise is with
> Oracle's architecture that is probably the best choice for that one
> particular customer. If he'd said DB2 I'd say
> exactly the opposite. But if the fear, as stated, is a job being
> off-shored ... that's not likely to happen with
> accounting records unless the OP's company is planning on going out
> of business soon.
>
> --
> Daniel Morgan
> [url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp[/url]
> [url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp[/url]
> [email]damorgan@x.washington.edu[/email]
> (replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)
>

[Mark A]

First, please use text. I have to manually split each line and input the ">"
and ">>" into my response. Accepted etiquette for newsgroups is to use text
format. Thank you.

>>I don't know why you think bitmap indexing is so important.
>>If IBM thought
>>it was important, they would use it.
>>I don't know why you think stability, security, and scalability
>>are important. If Microsoft thought
>>they were important, they'd use them. Sorry for the derisive
>>laughter but the same can be said of
>>every feature in every product on the market sold by any
>>company for any purpose.

>Surely you can just be honest and acknowledge that
>there are things that product A does that product
>B doesn't do and that some customers might find them
>of value. If the purpose of these groups is
>brain-dead weasel marketing have at it. But if the point
>of these groups is to be objective and fact-based
>it seems to me that integrity dictates that sometimes we
>acknowledge that this product or that has a weakness.
>I challenge anyone to name any product that doesn't
>have weaknesses. They all do. Get over it!

DB2 like all products has its share of shortcomings. I do not agree that
lack of bit-map indexes is one of them. Check out the benchmark results and
tell me why it is so much better if the performance is virtually identical.

>>I don't think that most DBA's really
>>understand the underlying architectures well enough
>>to understand which is
>>better, especially since the indexes are implemented differently

>>(even for b-trees) in both products. The best way to evaluate

>>performance is via a benchmark.

>That is absolutely untrue. From my experience every professional

>and product has its slouches. But the
>vast majority of DB2 DBAs I've worked with have been

>knowledgeable and professional. And the same
>can be said for those working in Oracle, Informix, and Sybase

>(got to leave a little room to diss. MS again).

DBA's are not slouches just because they don't fully understand ALL of the
internal workings of the database. This is especially true of relational
database, where the theory of the relational database is to deliberately
isolate the access method details from the user. Just the fact that you
claim that having a bit-map index is necessarily better, proves to me that
you don't understand the internal workings of the databases. If had b-tree
indexes like Oracle, I would probably want bit-map indexes also. I can
absolutely categorically state that YOU don't understand all the internal
differences between Oracle and DB2 with respect to indexes.



One thing is for sure--you lack a fundamental understanding of relational
database theory. Any vendor can do things to make their databases run
faster, but when they do, they are sometimes moving away from the relational
model (where the access statement is completely independent of the access
path). IBM has databases like IMS fastpath that will blow Oracle out of the
water 10 times in a TPC-C benchmark, but it is not a relational database.



Oracle, which started out with a lower adherence to the relational model
than DB2 (according to the famous article published by the inventor of the
relational model, Dr. Ted Codd in Computerworld about 15 years ago), has
moved further away from relational over the years. It has tied applications
and database closer together, using non-relational concepts and proprietary
features that make Oracle less relational and less able to be ported to
another ANSI standard relational database.



If DB2 and Oracle have almost identical benchmark results, then I don't see
how you can argue that Oracle has some performance features that DB2 does
not have. But it would not surprise me if IBM added bit-map indexes, not to
improve performance, but to improve their marketing efforts to morons like
you.

>>As previously mentioned in another post, IBM

>>uses SAP internally and has already spent over a $100 million

>>in SAP licenses (not including hundreds of
>>millions more for implementation), all implemented on various

>>DB2 platforms. SAP and IBM have a close alliance and

>>commitment towards each other.
>>Obviously, Oracle will also work fine with SAP, even if

>>Oracle's ERP business (and aspirations) make them less

>>than friendly some times. And as mentioned previously Microsoft

>>usess SAP internally and has decided to use Oracle.

>Again sorry for the laughter but lets get real. Either product will

>suffice for SAP. If the in-house expertise is with Oracle's architecture
>that is probably the best choice for that one particular customer.
>If he'd said DB2 I'd say exactly the opposite. But if the fear, as
>stated, is a job being off-shored ... that's not likely to happen with
>accounting records unless the OP's company is planning on
>going out of business soon.
>Daniel Morgan

I agree (and explicitly said so) that either database will work fine with
SAP. Only possible difference is admin cost, not a difference in
performance. The reason that I mentioned the relationship of IBM and SAP was
to underscore the commitment of SAP to DB2. This was not always the case,
and most Oracle salesman will still claim that SAP does not support DB2 as
well as Oracle. I guess I thought you were smart enough to understand the
context of my remark.

[Mark Townsend]

> I don't know why you think bitmap indexing is so important. If IBM thought
> it was important, they would use it.

Unless it was protected by a patent, of course.

> has
> already spent over a $100 million in SAP licenses (not including hundreds of
> millions more for implementation)

Hmm - not a great endorsement. I wonder if the implementation would have
been cheaper if Oracle had been used - after all, I wonder how many SAP
BASIS consultants out there have DB2 skills vs Oracle ?

Lets check the SAP education website for training courses. That may give
(some of) us a clue

BASIS on Oracle -
[url]http://www.sap.com/usa/education/curriculum/course.asp?rid=55&cid=60040368[/url]
- 3 dates in America in the next three months

Basis on DB2 LUW -
[url]http://www.sap.com/usa/education/curriculum/course.asp?rid=55&cid=60050438[/url]
- this course is currently not scheduled

Informix -
[url]http://www.sap.com/usa/education/curriculum/course.asp?rid=55&cid=60051016[/url]
- this course is currently not scheduled

Basis on DB2/390 -
[url]http://www.sap.com/usa/education/curriculum/course.asp?rid=55&cid=60051017[/url]
- this course is currently not scheduled (and it's even taught by IBM)


A quick check of the UK schedule at
[url]http://www.sap.com/uk/education/courses/edusched.pdf[/url] shows that they
don't even bother to include DB2 courses in the literature.

[Mark A]

"Mark Townsend" <markbtownsend@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:lOaab.376417$cF.112913@rwcrnsc53...

>

> > I don't know why you think bitmap indexing is so important. If IBM

thought

> > it was important, they would use it.

>
> Unless it was protected by a patent, of course.
>

DB2 dynamically uses bitmap indexes with logical AND & OR operations
matching the AND & OR found in the search criteria of your query. But DBA's
really don't need to know this since it is completely transparent to them.

Other databases use hashing to directly address data on disk, including
IBM's IMS and CA's IDMS (both non-relational). DB2 always addresses data
from memory first (and puts data in memory if not already in memory), so
direct addressing of disk is not as important or useful. It also creates
very inefficient usage of storage, causing large holes of unused disk space.
This would make sequential prefetch much less effective.

Bottom line is that the underlying physical architectures of Oracle and DB2
have some differences that lead them to use different methods to access
data. In the end, the performance is almost identical, so it is not as
simple as why one database doesn't use a particular internal method to
achieve optimal performance.

> > has
> > already spent over a $100 million in SAP licenses (not including

hundreds of

> > millions more for implementation)

>
> Hmm - not a great endorsement. I wonder if the implementation would have
> been cheaper if Oracle had been used - after all, I wonder how many SAP
> BASIS consultants out there have DB2 skills vs Oracle ?
>

IBM didn't need any DB2 training. The cost was for a corporate unlimited-use
license all over the world. IBM is a much more decentralized company than
you might suspect, and there were many different implementations of SAP on
several different platforms.

The implementation cost was not unusual considering the number of separate
SAP installations at IBM, and the complexity of migrating from multiple
manufacturing and fulfillment legacy systems, and interfacing with the many
other IBM systems that were not replaced by SAP. No one has ever said that
implementing SAP is cheap.

[David Cuffee]

You might find that the difference in cost will also make you lean toward
DB2. The only think you might have a problem with in DB2 is dropping a
column. Not very easy to do, you have to basically move the data to a new
table without the column you want to drop :).

David


"Bob Miles" <bobnwendy@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:3f691111.111814093@netnews.comcast.net...

>
> After reading the responses to my posting and talking to reps from IBM
> and Oracle, I agree that Daniel Morgan is right that either database
> system will work just fine with SAP R3. On the TPC web site I found a
> TPC-C result using the same hardware for the database server (a 32
> processor IBM p690) for both DB2 UDB V8.1 and Oracle 10g with less
> than a 0.6% difference between the database systems.
>
> For warehouse systems, which we will also be using, I would lean
> toward Oracle for the range partitioning and bitmap indexes. The
> range partitioning does add additional work for the DBA, but is faster
> when dropping large chunks of data.
>
> I do have a bias toward Oracle since I know it quite well since I have
> worked with it for several years and I am a certified Oracle DBA.
> What causes me to now to lean toward DB2 is that there seems to be
> less probability of outsourcing of the administration function to
> India.
>

[Blair Adamache]

DB2 on iSeries uses bitmap indexing. It might have been a candidate for
integration into DB2 on other platforms, but we came up with dynamic
bitmaps in 1997, so the DBA didn't have to choose which kind of index to
create.

I also thought that IBM and Oracle cross-licensed each other's database
patents? I could be wrong about that,

Mark Townsend wrote:

>

>> I don't know why you think bitmap indexing is so important. If IBM
>> thought
>> it was important, they would use it.

>
>
> Unless it was protected by a patent, of course.
>

[Daniel Morgan]

David Cuffee wrote:

>You might find that the difference in cost will also make you lean toward
>DB2. The only think you might have a problem with in DB2 is dropping a
>column. Not very easy to do, you have to basically move the data to a new
>table without the column you want to drop :).
>
>David
>
>

So you say. But every price comparison of apples with apples, rather
than apples with oranges, I've ever run has shown the prouducts to be
roughly equal in cost.

Take the price of Oracle standard edition licensed by CPU and compare
with DB2 + Tivoli + C compiler which is what is required as Oracle
supplies the complete security infrastrcture and C compiler in its
standard license.

Your mileage may vary. But I've negotiated agreements with both
companies and have yet to see a significant difference in price.
I think this "DB2 costs less" is just another bit of mythology that
needs to be put to bed. Can anyone here say they bought their last car
based on price and no other feature? How about your TV? Your shoes?
Certainly IBM has far more to offer a potential buyer than price. If not
time to move to MS Access and get that really big savings.

--
Daniel Morgan
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp[/url]
[url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp[/url]
[email]damorgan@x.washington.edu[/email]
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

[Larry Edelstein]

What Tivoli product needs to be added to provide "security", and what function
does it provide?

Larry

Daniel Morgan wrote:

> David Cuffee wrote:
>

> >You might find that the difference in cost will also make you lean toward
> >DB2. The only think you might have a problem with in DB2 is dropping a
> >column. Not very easy to do, you have to basically move the data to a new
> >table without the column you want to drop :).
> >
> >David
> >
> >

> So you say. But every price comparison of apples with apples, rather
> than apples with oranges, I've ever run has shown the prouducts to be
> roughly equal in cost.
>
> Take the price of Oracle standard edition licensed by CPU and compare
> with DB2 + Tivoli + C compiler which is what is required as Oracle
> supplies the complete security infrastrcture and C compiler in its
> standard license.
>
> Your mileage may vary. But I've negotiated agreements with both
> companies and have yet to see a significant difference in price.
> I think this "DB2 costs less" is just another bit of mythology that
> needs to be put to bed. Can anyone here say they bought their last car
> based on price and no other feature? How about your TV? Your shoes?
> Certainly IBM has far more to offer a potential buyer than price. If not
> time to move to MS Access and get that really big savings.
>
> --
> Daniel Morgan
> [url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp[/url]
> [url]http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp[/url]
> [email]damorgan@x.washington.edu[/email]
> (replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)