Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sunquest!whm From: whm@sunquest.UUCP (Bill Mitchell) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: DBMS evaluation Message-ID: <161@sunquest.UUCP> Date: 20 Jan 89 02:09:22 GMT Organization: Sunquest Information Systems, Tucson Lines: 64 A couple of weeks ago I posted an article alluding to a database evaluation that I've been working on for a while. This generated some questions about what I've found. Well, I've got some findings, but a lot of the findings were obtained on a non-disclosure basis, so I can't pass those findings along. I'm sure that a lot of firms do DBMS evaluations for their own purposes and now that we're in the winding down stage, I have to wonder about the right way to go about selecting a database is. Our situation is that we're developing a new product and we see a lot of development leverage that can be applied by using a database system. Thus, we endeavored to pick one out. Our approach was to get a set of manuals for each system and study them. We looked at six systems: Oracle, Ingres, Unify, Informix, Empress, and Sybase, and I estimate that about 11,000 pages of documentation were involved. I certainly didn't read every page, but I read a lot of pages. I have to think that there's a better way, but what? It would be wonderful if all vendors would produce an in-depth overview of their product. Of the six vendors, only Empress and Sybase provided documentation of this sort and I think they still fell a little short of what I'd like to see. However, I have to give Empress and Sybase high marks for attempting to meet this need. I have to give RTI some credit for having C.J. Date write "A Guide to Ingres" under a consulting contract. On the down side, such books go out of date and I'd rather see such documents be current and directly available from the vendor. Of course, everyone has glossies, but there's never enough detail to really answer one's questions. I thought that Datapro reports might be a good source for information and I looked at their reports on various systems. They had some useful information such as the quantity of licenses sold and such, but in general, they weren't much use. I don't know if this is generally the case, but at least one report contained text straight from a vendor's glossy. The naive might think that vendor representatives might be a good source of information. For specific questions about a product, the vendor is a good source, but I've never heard a DBMS vendor say that their product is anything but perfectly suited for one's application. Vendors are often short on knowledge about the competition and can't make detailed comparisons between their product and their competitor's. We never pursued it, but I wonder if there might be consultants around who would take a look at one's needs and make recommendations. Of course, you might want to get a second opinion or two. I wonder if it would be feasible for an unbiased group to produce an outline for a summary document and then have each vendor produce a document adhering to the outline. I know, that's a little optimistic. Well, to conclude, I think that there are probably a lot of persons currently involved in trying to select a DBMS. If you've got any good ideas on DBMS selection, I'm sure a lot of readers of this group would like to hear them. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Mitchell whm@sunquest.com Sunquest Information Systems sunquest!whm@arizona.edu Tucson, AZ {arizona,uunet}!sunquest!whm 602-885-7700 p.s. If you're involved in a DBMS evaluation at the moment, I'll be glad to give you my two cents (over the phone) on what I think about any or all of the systems that I looked at. The best time to reach me is between 2pm and 6pm MST, M-F.