preview

IBM DB2 vs Oracle Essay

Good Essays

For this week’s paper I have chosen to do a comparison between IBM’s DB2 database management system (DBMS) product and Oracle. Realistically, making such a comparison is akin to discussing religion with friends. Each person will have their own biases based on their own experiences. Looking for an unbiased opinion is much like looking for the Holy Grail, every bit as speculative and subjective with the results jaundiced by the outlook of the reporter (Lim, 2002).
A decision between DB2 and Oracle should be based on what resources are available for use at the site. Is there specific hardware or software already onsite that can or will be used in the installation, if so this will have a major impact on the decision making process. Does the …show more content…

Oracle 9i comes in three versions enterprise, standard, and personal. Oracle also requires the following patch levels on Windows operating systems (OS) for installation; Windows NT, service pack (sp) 5; Windows 2000, sp 1; Windows XP, none needed. Oracle 9i is also available for HP AIX, Compaq Tru64 Unix, Linux, and Sun Solaris (Chigrik, 2003).
The DB2 Universal Database v8.1 comes in six flavors, DB2 Enterprise Server Edition, DB2 Workgroup Server Edition, DB2 Workgroup Server Unlimited Edition, DB2 Personal Edition, DB2 Universal Developers Edition, and DB2 Personal Developers Edition. The following patch levels are required based on the Windows OS it is installed on. Windows NT, sp 6a; Windows 2000, sp 2 is required for terminal services; Windows XP, none. As with Oracle, DB2 is also available for the following UNIX based OS’s, AIX, Linux, Sun Solaris, and adds support for HP UX (Chigrik, 2003).
Performing a flat out performance comparison between these two RDBMS is difficult mostly because both can be used to build a stable and efficient system. Most of the difference in performance can usually be traced back to the developer and the administrators for the respective systems. But, that said, a direct comparison is possible once a set of typical transactions have been defined, that can then be run under the different DBMS on different hardware and software platforms (Chigrik, 2003).
In fact, this is what has been done by the

Get Access