IBM Asserts that DB2 Is Better, Faster, and Cheaper
December 6, 2009
I thought that in the old joke about “better, faster, and cheaper”, I could only pick two attributes. The idea, of course, is that the three attributes don’t live in the same Venn diagram like lovers in a trailer court in rural Kentucky.
Take a look at “IBM DB2 Gains New Enthusiasts in Search of Better Performance at Lower Cost” on the IBM.com Web site. Note this subhead: “More than 100 SAP Clients Have Switched their Database Software to DB2 in Last Six Months”.
The idea is that SAP customers whom I assume * were * using Microsoft SQL Server jumped to IBM’s DB2. Now SAP has its hands full with grousing customers, revenue decreases, and competitive pressure. The guts of the news release is that when the “old dog” is replaced with a “new IBM DB2 breed”, staff costs go down by 35 percent and “efficiency” (whatever that word means) shoots up by 65 percent.
The key paragraph for me was this one:
Since 2003, IBM DB2 on POWER Systems has demonstrated consistent performance leadership. DB2 uniquely holds the number one position in the online transaction processing (OLTP) (1), warehouse (2), and SAP standard application benchmarks. Recent results on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark showed that IBM DB2 running on a POWER 550 System delivered high performance of 3,752 SAP SD Benchmark users (3).
My hunch is that a price war among major RDBMS vendors is brewing. I don’t think the performance differences among these long-in-the-tooth RDBMS systems is achievable without some serious hardware. The next generation data management systems are likely to become more attractive. Big Blue and its ilk cannot afford long term price wars. Billing for services to make up the license losses won’t do the trick either. In short, spin before the storm.
Stephen Arnold, December 6, 2009
Okay, I confess. I was not paid to write this opinion. I bet the person who Twitter the link to me, a certain IBMDB2, was paid, however. I wonder if he will report to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces as I have? Probably not. I seem to be one of a small percentage of Web log authors who report who pays me and who does not to anyone. A lone goose again!
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