January 27, 2004 at 11:20 am
I am looking at two applicaitons developed for my business - one runs on SQL Server and one runs on IBM Universe which I believe came from the Informix purchase.
Can anyone compare the two technologies for me? Obviously, I know getting data out of SQL Server vs. Universe (which I think is a proprietary db) is easier and more efficient. But, I need some good ammo to take to my boss as to why we should choose SQL Server technology.
January 27, 2004 at 9:39 pm
I Work With SQL Server and UniVerse Daily. I maintain a SQL Datawarehouse base on a UV TPS. I'm by no means an expert but have been working on the two platforms for over 3 years.
The main differences I've noticed
Universe it older technology derived from Pick, stores mainly in Hash files using hashing algorithms to store the keys and data. Although later releases are ODBC friendlier and some what relational; UV is primarily mutli-valued where sub tables are nested in the 1 side or parent tables. UV take a considerable amount of configuring to make it peform as truly relational. A co worker once told me UV come from an era where the front end was used to enforce relational integrity and data type etc...UV simply hold and retrieves the data (very fast when using key values).
Where as SQL is from an era where the database peforms a lot of the validaton work both relationally and with the data itself. It seems that UV is more tunable and can be configured more presicely for apps, however it would take a rocket scientest to know and properly use all the tuning variables.
Of the two systems we use SQL Server is more stable, faster, and definitely more user friendly (even for developers). One might be able to make the argument that UV is more scalable as it runs on AIX/UNIX RISC machines; which may be true. I'd argure to the contrary if you need some thing that scalable go with Oracle or DB2. In my experience UV is too much of a pain to deal with for it's benefits.(I have some what of a skewed view of UV because our particular implementation is heavily multie valued with absoluton no data validation...the DB will take anything you throw at it).
January 27, 2004 at 9:43 pm
Also more to your question.
Information and support for SQL Server is readily available.
Training classes, support packs, books, documents etc... can be found all over the web.
UV is owned by IBM now, I've found little documentation for it on the net, little third party training, and almost no support.
In my opinion if you own UV you'll be bound to paying IBM's high prices for support and training.
A minor problem in SQL will most likely be solved by surfing the net, knowledge base on MS, or looking in the SQL help file.
A minor problem in UV is far more likely to result in a 1600 dollars call to IBM.
January 28, 2004 at 11:19 am
Our Company has worked with Universe since 1982 and We are Turning it off!
As in the other posts, there is very limited support available and it costs us twice as much per hour to hire people who know it. Everything is stored in text, so your applications have to convert all datatypes before storing in the database. Since most current ODBC based frontend applications assume some sort of datatyping on the Database server, you can't rely on them for Universe. UV is also only a command line application, so the learning curve for DBA tasks is much steeper. There is always a cost of conversion, And I can Highly recommend Eagle rock Information systems http://www.eriscorp.com as a consultant who knows UNiverse inside and out. They are helping us turn it off!
January 29, 2004 at 8:22 pm
Maggie, I think they misunderstood. You meant IBM UDB, or Universal DB correct.
I would not consider it a proprietary, but definitely not nearly as easy as SQL to manage and maintain. I've support both for 4 years, and SQL many before that.
If it was UDB, post some questions, I'll try and answer them unbiased. I think it's a pain to support compared to SQL Server.
UniVerse is not a bad little DB, I would with it about 10 years ago for quite awhile, actually back then I'd say ahead of it's time. I think today its fallen by the wayside.
Interestingly SQL Server now supports that same multi-dimensional concept.
KlK
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