You are exactly right on XPS have some compelling technology. Yes IBM is getting a healthy boost in customer base but they can't just tell the bunch of them to switch to DB/2 by the end of the year. The only way they will keep them is to make the transition slow and painless, at least 5 years. They have done it before, they will do the same here.
Some of the goodies to be had from XPS and what remains of that development team is the real prize. Index builds like nothing I have ever seen before. Also the optimizer for queries against tables distributed across several coservers with hundreds of millions of rows is way out ahead. Take a look at the latest TPC-H benchmarks. You also don't have to be constantly giving directives on how to conduct the queries. This is not to say that they don't also have significant problems. Engine crashing bugs and mediocre, at best, tech support.
Also the engine is a breaze to set up and administer. Wal-mart has over 6000 instances running with only 8 DBAs. Mostly because running hot backups are so easy. I don't want to get down on Oracle however. They definitely have a broader feature set, superior third party support and better performance in a number of areas. Informix will give the DBA much less grief, Oracle on the other hand gives the DBA more job security. Ohhh, I hate these choices.
--The one with the smartest marketing department wins.
Open Source is far from un-American. It is the essence of classic American political philosophy taken into the information age. The right to sell or not to sell and the right to use what you buy as you see fit. Now the tyrannical business tactics of Micro$oft on the other hand...
"Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils." - General John Stark, 1809
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You are exactly right on XPS have some compelling technology. Yes IBM is getting a healthy boost in customer base but they can't just tell the bunch of them to switch to DB/2 by the end of the year. The only way they will keep them is to make the transition slow and painless, at least 5 years. They have done it before, they will do the same here. Some of the goodies to be had from XPS and what remains of that development team is the real prize. Index builds like nothing I have ever seen before. Also the optimizer for queries against tables distributed across several coservers with hundreds of millions of rows is way out ahead. Take a look at the latest TPC-H benchmarks. You also don't have to be constantly giving directives on how to conduct the queries. This is not to say that they don't also have significant problems. Engine crashing bugs and mediocre, at best, tech support. Also the engine is a breaze to set up and administer. Wal-mart has over 6000 instances running with only 8 DBAs. Mostly because running hot backups are so easy. I don't want to get down on Oracle however. They definitely have a broader feature set, superior third party support and better performance in a number of areas. Informix will give the DBA much less grief, Oracle on the other hand gives the DBA more job security. Ohhh, I hate these choices. --The one with the smartest marketing department wins.
Open Source is far from un-American. It is the essence of classic American political philosophy taken into the information age. The right to sell or not to sell and the right to use what you buy as you see fit. Now the tyrannical business tactics of Micro$oft on the other hand... "Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils." - General John Stark, 1809