DB2 vs. Oracle on MVS system : Need Opinions/Experience ASAP
Gene Kligerman
>
> We are trying to determine the "best" database to install on our
> MVS/CICS machine. We are considering Oracle and DB2. We presently
> have Oracle installed on some netware machines and 1 Unix machine. We
> have a significant application developed using DB2/2 on an OS/2 server.
>
>
DB2 for OS/2 is a lot closer to DB2 for MVS than Oracle is. You
mentioned that you have a significant DB2 for OS/2 application, but
no mention of Oracle app. Given the above, why are you considering
Oracle in the first place?
A good reason to consider implementing Oracle on MVS would be if you
have a heavy investment in Oracle skills that you would like to apply
on the mainframe.
However if you did go with Oracle on the mainframe, performance,
availability, reliability, etc. would not be the reason.
Given that any MVS investment is fairly expensive in absolute $$$,
you'd need to give a pretty good justification to your bean counters
before using the mainframe as just an expensive paperweight.
I know there are some shops who run Oracle on MVS, but they are few and
far between (I doubt any of them read this forum).
Aside from DB2 not running on Netware (OS/2, AIX, HP, SUN are
supported), there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to go to Oracle.
But then again, I am biased.
--
Gene Kligerman
DB2 Development, IBM Software Solutions Toronto Lab
ge...@vnet.ibm.com
Kirk Bradley
Ahem,
"However if you did go with Oracle on the mainframe, performance,
availability, reliability, etc. would not be the reason."
want to tell me more about this?
I'm biased too ;-)
In article <3116B5...@vnet.ibm.com>, Gene Kligerman
leebert
>However if you did go with Oracle on the mainframe, performance,
>availability, reliability, etc. would not be the reason.
>Given that any MVS investment is fairly expensive in absolute $$$,
>you'd need to give a pretty good justification to your bean counters
>before using the mainframe as just an expensive paperweight.
Gene,
I'm looking at Oracle vs. DB2 on Windows/NT.
Any comments about the two products (speed, cost of administration,
stability, etc.)?
*-------------------------------------------------------------
Genus: cyberhabilis; Species: leebert
*-------------------------------------------------------------
Reality is a postulate | Once you've seen one
for those who cannot deal | Mandelbrot set, you've
with recursive solipsism. | seen them all!
*-------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Murphy
>
> DB2 for OS/2 is a lot closer to DB2 for MVS than Oracle is.
Perhaps, but it is certainly not 100% compatible.
Gary Rue
experience with Oracle on the mainframe to consider this
an expert opinion (we did a quick review once about 8 years
ago).
Note, IMHO your DB2/2 experiences will not be of much help
when you install DB2 on the big iron. As with most any big
iron database, the systems programmer and database
adminstration requirements are immense.
Cheers and Luck
Gary Rue, Commonwealth of KY, Manager, Data Services
>
> Allan J. Vath wrote:
> >
> > We are trying to determine the "best" database to install on our
> > MVS/CICS machine. We are considering Oracle and DB2.
>
> Gene Kligerman wrote:
>
>Given the above, why are you considering Oracle in the first place?
>
>... there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to go to Oracle.
>
Randy Corum
>We are trying to determine the "best" database to install on our
>MVS/CICS machine. We are considering Oracle and DB2. We presently
>have Oracle installed on some netware machines and 1 Unix machine. We
>have a significant application developed using DB2/2 on an OS/2 server.
>1. Does anyone have any experience with either DB2 or Oracle on MVS?
>2. Anyone done an evaluation of Oracle or DB2 on MVS?
>3. Can anyone point out any significant differences between DB2 and
> Oracle on MVS?
>4. Anyon have any opinions based on experience?
>Thanks,
>Allan J. Vath
I have worked with both Oracle and DB2 on MVS. The main difference is
in the each corporations view of the MVS platform. For IBM, MVS is
their bread and butter, for Oracle it's an after thought. Oracle DBMS
was born on VMS, it's home is UNIX.
For Oracle, it's the last platform to get new ports, last to get bug
fixes, and last to get service (development staff for MVS Oracle is
very limited.) For IBM, DB2/MVS is usually relatively bug free, and
has a good support staff.
Oracle tends to the glitzy features and does a poor job with the
basics, IBM tends to cover the basics before worrying about glitz.
Backups are a case in point. Many Oracle customers don't have need of
7x24 operations, and don't worry about hotsites. They may be in a
position to shut down their applications at 5PM and do complete
backups.
With Oracle, you will find a dependence on OS based tools (ie. ABARS,
HSM/SMS, FDR, etc.) Oracle has never been easy to bring up during a
hotsite test because of this problem. Files are out of synch or are
mysteriously empty or missing from the backups (enque problems?) Lack
of these utilities can shorten your batch window, and make 7x24 very
tricky.
With DB2, you get utilities that are tailored to the needs of MVS and
the 7x24 operations that are commonly expected MVS. That is not even
considering the products of vendors like BMC, Platinum, etc. If you
find DB2/MVS utilities lacking, ofter you can find what you need from
someone else.
I can't give you a diary of the last 5 years, but I think that you get
the drift. Oracle has been dropping MVS products for years, QMX (SMF
clone) and FORMS development are a couple that come to mind. I would
not count on any Oracle software being on MVS in 5 years (my opinion.)
Also, beware the Oracle salesperson, they will do anything for that
commission.
Randy Corum
rco...@qni.com
Gene Kligerman
>
>
>Ahem,
> availability, reliability, etc. would not be the reason."
>
>
Nah, I would rather let the actual customers who used both express their
opinions.
Had I waited for Randy Corum's append, I wouldn't have even bothered to post.
Needless to say (being biased), I tend to agree with Randy's view on how IBM
approaches DB2 on MVS.
>I'm biased too ;-)
>
In that case I suspect you don't agree with Randy's view how Oracle approaches
MVS.
--
SSCGH1
(!!) Gateway to DB2; this was while I was doing all the DB2 stuff too. We
did not use Oracle as a server so I can't comment on it's capabilities
compared to DB2.
However, support is a problem with Oracle on MVS. Most of us on this list
have an opinion of the DB2 support from MVS; mine has been generally
positive. With Oracle however, I could not make commitments to my
internal clients as to when problems would be diagnosed, much less fixed
(lots of , "Well, install the next release when it comes out"). As a
result, I would have a real problem putting production data into Oracle on
MVS or using it to get to DB2. It would be difficult to agree to
acceptable service level agreements (with a straight face) if using
Oracle.
Carol Heckman
Insurance Services Office
Pearl River, NY
914 620 4034
SSC...@AOL.COM
======>>My opinions are just that!!!<<=======
Gene Kligerman
>
>Still looking for functional differences?
>
Allan, I am afraid that I am no expert on the virtues (or vices) of the
MVS product line. So the best I could do was to pass your question along
to the folks who might be able to answer it.
Allan J. Vath
Gene
We do have 2 Netware Oracle databases used in two Manufacturing
Execution systems, and 1 Oracle database on a RS/6000 for our Human
Resource Management System (> 3000 active employees !).
Still looking for functional differences?
Thanks for your reply.
Allan Vath
Bill Manry - Oracle Corp.
[...]
>In that case I suspect you don't agree with Randy's view how Oracle approaches
>MVS.
I agree with some of it. Oracle approaches MVS in roughly the same
way DB2 approaches Sun, HP, and Windows-NT: we "port" base product
code to build an MVS-specific implementation. There are drawbacks in
this approach (which I'll get to in a minute) but the advantage is
that in terms of database functions and SQL, Oracle really is the same
everywhere. We don't have four different SQLs and four different
optimizers written in three different languages. And we don't have to
publish a Formal Register of Existing Differences (love that acronym)
so application developers can avoid DB2/x's platform-to-platform
variations in SQL and semantics.
Yes, there are drawbacks. MVS is by far the most complex "port" of
Oracle and it took a lot of MVS-specific programming to create a
reasonable product. However, we've been at it for 12 years or so and
the current Oracle7 (7.2) product on MVS is very strong. The
integration is tight, using the subsystem interface, SRB scheduling,
Media Manager for I/O (like DB2/MVS), fully-integrated attachments for
CICS, IMS/TM, and TSO/batch, and all that MVS-specific stuff. Did you
happen to catch our joint (with IBM) announcement this week? We are
delivering Oracle Parallel Server for the Parallel MVS (CMOS) boxes.
That's full-function Oracle7 running on multiple nodes of a sysplex.
DB2/MVS is trailing us by quite a margin in this and other areas.
Randy is correct that the complexity of the MVS port has delayed
delivery of MVS releases in past versions but I suspect his experience
in this area may not be recent. MVS has been tracking base code
releases very closely for some time and (due to higher customer
expectations) is ahead of many Oracle platforms in fix responsiveness.
If MVS is the only place you will run a relational DBMS, DB2/MVS fits
well and is comfortable. But if your plans include multiple platforms
I think you'll be a lot happier running the same database engine on
all of them, and the only product which does that is Oracle.
/b
--
Bill Manry - Mainframe and Integration Technologies - Oracle Corporation
Standard disclaimer applies.
Bob Harbus
> But if your plans include multiple platforms
>I think you'll be a lot happier running the same database engine on
>all of them, and the only product which does that is Oracle.
Oh ... somehow I don't think so! DB2 on HP, Solaris (V2.1.1 out this month on both)
OS/2, AIX, NT, Clients on all plus Macintosh and WIn95 ... and Siemens Nixdorf
in the works! Can Oracle cover all these platforms? Not to mention is Oracle on
VM, VSE and AS/400?
===========================================
Bob Harbus DB2 Technical Sales Support
IBM Software Solutions Lab Toronto
Internet: bha...@vnet.ibm.com
CompuServe: 72662,2565
Patrick Gainer
Bob Harbus <bha...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>In <4fgrpj$i...@inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com>, bma...@ibmgate-aix.us.oracle.com (Bill Manry - Oracle Corp.) writes:
>> But if your plans include multiple platforms
>>I think you'll be a lot happier running the same database engine on
>>all of them, and the only product which does that is Oracle.
>
>Oh ... somehow I don't think so! DB2 on HP, Solaris (V2.1.1 out this month on both)
>OS/2, AIX, NT, Clients on all plus Macintosh and WIn95 ... and Siemens Nixdorf
>in the works! Can Oracle cover all these platforms? Not to mention is Oracle on
>VM, VSE and AS/400?
Bob, a technical discussion is one thing but you are being disingenuous.
First, DB2 is not the same on all platforms. DB2/MVs, DB2/workstation, and
DB2/400 are all completely different code bases. Everyone knows this. So
you can't claim it is the *same* database platform running everywhere.
Second, although I haven't checked, I'd bet Oracle runs everywhere
DB2/workstation runs and lots more places besides (like SGI). The only places
you might not find Oracle will be on the AS/400 and more obscure systems
like VM/370 and VSE.
Pat
Bob Harbus
Dave Murphy
> bma...@ibmgate-aix.us.oracle.com (Bill Manry - Oracle Corp.) writes:
> > But if your plans include multiple platforms
> >I think you'll be a lot happier running the same database engine on
> >all of them, and the only product which does that is Oracle.
>
> Oh ... somehow I don't think so! DB2 on HP, Solaris (V2.1.1 out this
> month on both)
> OS/2, AIX, NT, Clients on all plus Macintosh and WIn95 ... and Siemens
> Nixdorf
> in the works! Can Oracle cover all these platforms? Not to mention is
> Oracle on
> VM, VSE and AS/400?
>
platforms. Also, Oracle is pretty much the same face to the developer
everywhere - DB2 isn't. Maybe it is becoming so, but at the moment DB2
does have differences for the developer between each platform. Don't
forget, most of the databases currently called 'DB2' didn't start life as
DB2, but were renamed for marketing purposes when IBM almost went under.
It isn't that many years ago that senior IBM people at DB2 development
declared publicly that DB2 would never appear on any platform other than
MVS.
Still, it is good to see IBM taking the product and the market seriously.
Dave.
Bill Manry - Oracle Corp.
[...]
>Oh ... somehow I don't think so! DB2 on HP, Solaris (V2.1.1 out this
>month on both) OS/2, AIX, NT, Clients on all plus Macintosh and WIn95
>... and Siemens Nixdorf in the works! Can Oracle cover all these
>platforms? Not to mention is Oracle on VM, VSE and AS/400?
For AS/400 (where DB2/400 is built in) we provide a gateway (two,
actually--DRDA and "native") and we're delivering client support that
runs directly off DB2/400 CLI (part of our Access Manager group of
products) so SQL/400 apps can connect to Oracle databases anywhere via
either APPC or TCP/IP. Oracle has been available on VM longer than
MVS (GA in 1985 I think). I freely admit we don't do VSE at this
time.
I believe we have the rest of those covered...plus Sequent, Pyramid
(including RM1000 parallel), SGI, DEC (OpenVMS, UNIX, et al), nCUBE,
DG AViiON, Unisys, AT&T, SCO, Netware, ICL, and probably a few that
I can't think of at the moment.
Kirk Bradley
We're talking about apples and oranges here. We decided that the windows
GUI API has won the war and simply stated that we will fully support the
worlds most popular API. Same thing IBM did I think.. it took a couple
of years for Datahub to get off OS/2 for example and even now there are
tons of programs that I cannot run on AIX that I can run on OS/2 or Windows.
These are business decisions. When we get pushed by the market we may reevaluate
them.
Also, the database engine runs on something like 80+ platforms today. And
yes, you get the same functionality everywhere (and you can COUNT on it)
and we don't go to the same lengths that IBM does to make our VM product
s/390 specific. We did, however, support more users for more years on Oracle
than anyone did on SQL/DS (why, because SQL/DS took quite a while to exploit
31 bit addressing etc. we could just run more virtual machines as WELL as
running in 31 bit mode).
And I just don't see how you can keep saying that DB2 is the same everywhere.
Your own FRED (Formal REgistry of Differences) document sure implies that
that is not the case (yet). I'm talking DML here. It's even something your
product groups claim as an advantage. db2/6000 can use user-written functions
and db2/400 and db2/mvs and sql/ds cannot?
Anyhow, we have gateways to DB2/MVS and DB2/400 and we KNOW that the SQLs
are not the same. Let's move on to some other topic shall we.
In article <31224D...@vnet.ibm.com>, Gene Kligerman
<ge...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> Dave Murphy wrote:
>
> > Not an Oracle groupie, but I understand they have something like 100
> > platforms. Also, Oracle is pretty much the same face to the developer
> > everywhere - DB2 isn't.
>
> DB2 is the same on every platform with the exception of the host
> platforms. The reason is obvious -- on the host platforms most
> customers want not just sizzle (common look), but also steak
> (performance and and all the "industrial strength" stuff).
>
> The fact that the vast majority of host databases run a derivative
> of DB2 database, and most of those in mission-critical applications,
> demonstrate that IBM is satisfying most customer requirements.
>
> > It isn't that many years ago that senior IBM people at DB2 development
> > declared publicly that DB2 would never appear on any platform other
> > than MVS.
>
> And it wasn't many days ago that senior Oracle people were declaring
> publicly that Oracle supports all the operating systems under the Sun.
>
> In view of that, the following press item dated 96/1/18 seems rather
> ironic:
>
> TEXT Oracle's declaration to its customers that porting one of its
> flagship software tools to Unix is too difficult and costly will
> have long-term ramifications for the company, its users and the
> Unix industry.
>
> The relational database supplier, which rose to success on the
> back of the Unix movement, has warned users it will not port its
> Designer/2000 tool to Unix and that full support for its earlier
> Oracle*Case tools for Unix will cease at the end of the year.
Craig S. Mullins
>From: Gene Kligerman <ge...@vnet.ibm.com>
>Subject: Re: DB2 vs. Oracle on MVS system : Need Opinions/Experience ASAP
>Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 20:59:50 GMT
>DB2 is the same on every platform with the exception of the host
>platforms. The reason is obvious -- on the host platforms most
>customers want not just sizzle (common look), but also steak
>(performance and and all the "industrial strength" stuff).
Just a quick note to "clarify" what is meant by "host platforms."
I assume by this you mean MVS, AS/400, VSE, and VM. The
last time I checked there were four distinct code bases for DB2:
one for MVS, one for AS/400, one for VSE and VM, and one for
OS/2, NT, Sun, HP, et al. And I thought the reason that there were
four was that they all started out as separate products [DB2 (MVS), SQL/DS
(VSE,VM), SQL/400 (AS/400), and EE DBM (OS/2)] developed by separate
IBM labs.
Don't get me wrong, I think IBM's DB2 family of products is fantastic (and
DB2 for MVS will outperform Oracle on MVS by a large margin). I just think
the reasoning and history for the many different "flavors" of DB2 should
be made clear...
Craig Mullins
PLATINUM technology, inc.
[ The opinions expressed in this posting are mine and not necessarily
those of PLATINUM technology, inc. ]
Tim Payne
Randy,
a few facts:
Oracle for MVS is classed as a tier 1 platform, its most certainly not an
afterthought. How many companies install a sysplex (as Oracle have) to
support an afterthought???? Is investing developer man years to exploit
the technical advantages of a parallel sysplex an afterthought?
QMX, Forms 2.3 and Forms 3.0 have desupport dates on all platforms, not
just MVS. Its true that we see MVS as an OLTP and Server platform, the
majority of our MVS users agree. It would make no sense to port GUI tools
to a 3270 environment. Why not use a graphical front end connected to
an MVS server?
Last to get new releases? Hmmmm. Tier one means delivery within 60 to 90
days of lead unix ports. We're usually within 30 to 60 days - for one
recent release we were the second port.
If you think our MVS strategy is flawed please ring me on 415 506 2722. We
would welcome your opinions.
Bill Manry - Oracle Corp.
[...]
>DB2 for MVS will outperform Oracle on MVS by a large margin).
I'm not sure I agree. Can you elaborate?