IBM Informix vs. Oracle Database

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.

Incentivized

We migrated from NoSQL to an Oracle database. One of the reasons was robust backup and recovery options available in the Oracle database, which provide zero data loss. A transactional database like Oracle is a better fit for our use case than NoSQL. On a large scale, deployment was evaluated as a cheaper option than the NoSQL engine. This conclusion came even after considering Oracle license is expensive.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Supports most of the Operating Systems like Unix, Linux and Windows Server.
• It works well in high load environment under intense parallel transactions setup.
• Highly reliable DBMS, especially RAC is very much reliable.
• Well managed and predictable release of security patches.
• We have highly scaled it from on-prem to a cloud cluster environment for our product.
• One of the best-performing DBMSs on Linux machines under test delivers high throughput (QPS).

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

Informix is the best RDBMS on the market. Period.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Server management is easy enough to be able to embed the engine in a device and let it run for years without maintenance.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The Informix product support team has won awards and is appreciated by the entire Informix user community.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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

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.

Because of a rich user base and support for any critical issue, this is one of the best options to choose. In case the project has a TCO issue, it can compromise and choose Postgres as the best alternative. SQL server is also good and easy to code and maintain but performance is not as good as the Oracle

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• Multiple applications can use the same database and still get high performance
• Licensing cost is still a concern compared to the other options available in the market that are very very inexpensive
• Almost a maintenance free database
• Oracle Grid makes life easy in terms of monitoring and managing the databases

Incentivized