An Analysis Of The Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Big Six Database Servers

Comparison Summary

DBMS Server Comparison Supplement

An Analysis Of The Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Big Six Database Servers.

In 1991 I performed a thorough evaluation and comparison of the four major DBMSs at the time: Informix, Ingres, Oracle, and Sybase. This comparison was done for a client building a huge distributed database application, currently in its second phase of d evelopment, with the first phase running successfully country-wide. At that stage, the distinguishing criteria were query optimizers, triggers, views, and support for distributed databases. Some products had these features, but some others' marketing per sonnel were just talking about them. For example, declarative integrity was a "future" that was at that stage only being phased into most of the DBMS products. It was relatively straightforward to draw up a checklist and fill it in with "yes" and "no" in the various columns.

Now, a mere five years later, these aspects - as well as many new features such as Internet support, remote procedure calls, and support for multiprocessor platforms - are standard items on each product's fact sheet and marketing material. On a very high level, DBMS products are becoming such commodity items in IT shops that it is almost possible to take a one-size-fits-all approach. On a detailed level, however, you must do a much more thorough evaluation. The products are evolving at such a fast pace, and their research and development teams are adding new features at such a rate, that simple yes/no entries in the comparison columns are just not enough. All of the comparisons would be similar, with mostly yes entries in each column and the odd no mar ked with an asterisk referring to a footnote saying, "Scheduled for the ...

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...and the World Wide Web in some way or another, they can basically be partitioned into two broad classes: script-based and server-based. Products such as Informix, CA-OpenIngres, and Syba se fall into the script-based class, in which you can include SQL operations or Perl scripts in your HTML Web pages or CGI scripts in order to access a specified database when the Web page is activated. The scripts must ensure that the data is returned i n an HTML-readable form. Products such as DB2, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server fall into the server-based class, in which a dedicated server process acts as a gateway to the designated databases to retrieve the required data and return it in an HTML-rea dable form. In addition, some of these products include tools to help you develop Web-oriented applications, such as the SQL Server Web Assistant that ships with Microsoft SQL Server.