Likelihood to Recommend IBM Informix creates an effective and secure channel for easy and quick data management and transfer across other major Cloud platforms and other data storage systems. The analytical ability is also the best and most effective visual functionalities and the encryption and the data archiving functionalities are great and easy on reporting.
Read full review I believe Oracle Database is still the best RDBMS database which is the database to consider for OLTP applications and for Adhoc requests. They are good in Datawarehousing in certain aspects but not the best. Oracle is also a great database for scaling up with their Clusterware solution which also makes the database highly available with services moving to the live instance without much trouble.
Read full review Pros Industry leading OLTP performance. Excellent Data Warehouse performance from the basic engine. Outstanding Data Warehouse performance from the Informix Warehouse Accelerator module. Best embedability among major RDBMS systems. Scalable from the smallest Raspberry PI up to the largest monolithic systems and out to dozens of distributed nodes. Hybrid data capabilities to merge relational data with time seriesv, geospacial data, JSON data and other non-traditional data types with performance comparable or better than systems dedicated to those data types. Read full review Best thing about it is that it supports PL/SQL which is helpful in writing complex quarries easily. Its storage capacity , backup and recovery features make it the best database storage tool available. Other thing I like about this software is its interface is so good. Read full review Cons It is very difficult to find a missing functionality in Informix, technically is great. I will again criticize the business side and how it has been managed over the past, I hope this could be improved with HCL's help. I know they are working hard, but we need to start letting the world know and revert their concept about its existence and that it is one of the best competitors within the data treatment, in the market. We need to start telling the world about success cases and stories showing this and backing up its strong technology. Read full review The memory demand and management makes it impossible to run it in a container. It is hard to perform local unit testing with Oracle even using the personal edition (aggressive all the available memory grab for itself). Lack of built in database migrations (e.g. as Flyway). The need to install the Oracle client in addition to its drivers. The cost of running it, especially in the Cloud. Comes with very spartan community grade client/management tools whereas the commercial offerings tend to demand a premium price. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Informix is the best RDBMS on the market. Period.
Read full review There is a lot of sunk cost in a product like Oracle 12c. It is doing a great job, it would not provide us much benefit to switch to another product even if it did the same thing due to the work involved in making such a switch. It would not be cost effective.
Read full review Usability Server management is easy enough to be able to embed the engine in a device and let it run for years without maintenance.
Read full review Many of the powerful options can be auto-configured but there are still many things to take into account at the moment of installing and configuring an Oracle Database, compared with SQL Server or other databases. At the same time, that extra complexity allows for detailed configuration and guarantees performance, scalability, availability and security.
Read full review Support Rating The Informix product support team has won awards and is appreciated by the entire Informix user community.
Read full review 1. I have very good experience with Oracle Database support team. Oracle support team has pool of talented Oracle Analyst resources in different regions. To name a few regions - EMEA, Asia, USA(EST, MST, PST), Australia. Their support staffs are very supportive, well trained, and customer focused. Whenever I open Oracle Sev1 SR(service request), I always get prompt update on my case timely. 2. Oracle has zoom call and chat session option linked to Oracle SR. Whenever you are in Oracle portal - you can chat with the Oracle Analyst who is working on your case. You can request for Oracle zoom call thru which you can share the your problem server screen in no time. This is very nice as it saves lot of time and energy in case you have to follow up with oracle support for your case. 3.Oracle has excellent knowledge base in which all the customer databases critical problems and their solutions are well documented. It is very easy to follow without consulting to support team at first.
Read full review Implementation Rating Overall the implementation went very well and after that everything came out as expected - in terms of performance and scalability. People should always install and upgrade a stable version for production with the latest patch set updates, test properly as much as possible, and should have a backup plan if anything unexpected happens
Read full review Alternatives Considered IBM Informix creates effective solutions for big data extraction and data transportation functionalities across the entire Cloud services and the Automation ability is the best. The security that IBM Informix provides for all our business data and other project information and contacts is effective and the reports are very clean and easy to understand.
Read full review Oracle is more of an enterprise-level database than Access and
SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise isn't getting developed much (some people wonder how close it is to end of life) but SQL Server is miles ahead of Oracle IMO in terms of user experience and comparable in terms of performance AFAIK. As stated, a vendor forced our hand to use Oracle so we did not have a choice. If you are looking for help with an issue you are having, there are lots of SQL Server articles, etc. on the web and the community of SQL Server developers and DBA's is very strong and supportive. Oracle's help on the web is much more limited and often has an attitude that goes with it of superiority and lacking in compassion, IMO. For instance, check out the Ask Tom Oracle blog - a world of difference. If you choose Oracle, go into it with eyes wide open.
Read full review Return on Investment Although I do not own nor have visibility on my company's figures: Informix generates consistent savings on DBA staffing, no need for many DBAs as other DBMS require. The replication architecture allowed consistent savings in the infrastructure as well as developments and maintenance, the job is already done, no need to develop complex and costly solutions, it's just a matter of configuring it. The advantages of hybrid development (i.e mixing SQL and NoSQL in the same database) is not just a marketing hype: it allowed us to solve with a brilliant solution, in one afternoon of coding, a functional problem we have been having for more than 10 years! The biggest drawback is that IBM pricing may be constraining, it has too important gaps between the mid range and highrange in terms of pricing Read full review Oracle Database 12c has had a very positive impact on our ability to build strong and robust custom applications in house without the need to come up with our own methods of data storage and management. Oracle Database 12c has the strongest user interface of any database I have worked with and continuously is improving its strength with the addition of support for JSON and XML type objects in the database. Oracle Database 12c is sometimes very heavy and DBA intensive, but the benefits far outweigh the costs, which we need to spend on DBA support for enabling security and access features. Read full review ScreenShots