[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

Title:DEC Rdb against the World
Moderator:HERON::GODFRIND
Created:Fri Jun 12 1987
Last Modified:Thu Feb 23 1995
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1348
Total number of notes:5438

607.0. "*URGENT* (as usual) knock offs on Ingres DB" by SCAACT::SMITHD () Tue Apr 03 1990 17:02

    Having recently completed an RFI and benmhmark for Mobil Oil Corp. with
    Ingres and Sybase as the competetion, it is rumored that Ingress has
    the business.  The sales team is in *dire* need for some caveats we can
    present to Mobil that they should consider before making their final
    choice.  Such as, if Ingres is chosen what limitations might Mobil
    encounter in utilizing other DEC hardware/software that wouldn't be
    there if Rdb were chosen.
    
    This is a *last* ditch effort to win the biz.
    
    Dave
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
607.1First few things that come to mind...LACKEY::HIGGSIn Hans' and Kevin's excellent adventureTue Apr 03 1990 20:1938
1) I don't believe that INGRES supports VAX clusters -- at least it doesn't as
well as Rdb/VMS does.  For example, can people on one node in a cluster access
the database concurrently with other people on other nodes in the same cluster
in an efficient manner?  Or do things get funnelled through a single process
that can cause a bottleneck?  Will the addition of a node in the cluster allow a 
reasonable level of scaling -- i.e. increase the number of users supported
and/or the transaction throughput?

2) I believe that INGRES has some surprisingly small limits on things like
the number of fields in a table, the max size of a field in a table, the total
size of a row in a table.  The Rdb limits are much greater.

3) Rdb/VMS provides much more flexibility in how data is physically partitioned
across disks, which can allow you much more control over performance.

4) I don't think INGRES integrates at all with *any* of our CASE/VAXset tools,
the most visible of which is the CDD.

5) Rdb/VMS can change most things in the database dynamically.  I believe
that INGRES forces you to take down the database from normal user access on a 
regular basis, and restructure it offline.  This includes the reoptimization of 
queries, I believe.

6) Rdb/VMS has online backup.  I don't believe that INGRES does.

7) Rdb/VMS has RMU, which allows you to find out all kinds of statistics about
your database, online.  I don't think INGRES has anything equivalent.

Of course, there are different versions of INGRES -- I presume that INGRES are
pitching their 6.2 (6.3?) version?  The answers to these questions will 
probably vary depending on what version you're talking about.

There are papers that compare INGRES with Rdb/VMS on a much more detailed level. 
Perhaps someone else can point you at them?  Michael Booth?

Hope this helps.

Bryan
607.2Backup, tuning and monitoringSRFSUP::LANGSTONRelational db for the nineties.Wed Apr 04 1990 03:3011
    Take a look at nova::pm01:[booth$public]rdbms_features_grid.* (or
    something like that).
    
    But, summarily, they don't the online, incremental, multistream
    backup capabilities (read "availibility") that Rdb does,
    they don't having the levels (variable table page size, database
    page size, index page size, both by-index and by-database) of db
    tuning that Rdb does.  And they don't have database-level integrity
    or triggers.
    
    -at least last time DBS marketing checked...