I have worked with Informix software for more than 15 years. I remember as a Unix administrator being handed a streaming tape and told to install the software that was on it. I remember after using the cpio command to extract the contents of the tape to the hard drive I had a bunch of files .dat and .idx. I believe it was version 4 something and the tool to manage the database, dbaccess, was not purchased so any changes made to the database had to be done with a 4gl program. Since then I have worked as a DBA using versions 5.x, 7.x, 9.x, and, most recently, 10.00.FC6.
In 2001 I was exposed to Oracle 8i, and in 2002 I passed five tests to become an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) for 8i. Since then I have passed the tests to become 9i and 10g certified, which is the main reason for creating this blog. I needed a place to write down all of the shortcomings that Informix has compared to Oracle. Not necessarily for anyone to read but for me to have a place to express my frustrations with the Informix software.
With the recent release of Informix 11, (code name cheetah because it is fast :-) I thought this would be a good media to compile some of my comparisons between the two databases. Which reminds me, in the Oracle world there is a normal progression of software versions released by the company. Starting with Oracle 8i, I believe there were three major releases. Again with 9i there were two or three major releases and 10g had two or three major releases. Currently 11g has only one release. With Informix, if my memory server me correctly, version 6 was a mistake, so it is never mentioned. I don’t know what happened to version 8. Version 9 of Informix had, I believe, 5 major releases but 9.5 was changed to version 10. As far as I know 10.0 will be the only major release of this version because version 11 is generally available. My guess is some marketing person(s) set these versions to try and keep up with the Oracle numbering scheme. I guess if you can't beat them in features and support might as well just keep up with the version number.
In 2001 I was exposed to Oracle 8i, and in 2002 I passed five tests to become an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) for 8i. Since then I have passed the tests to become 9i and 10g certified, which is the main reason for creating this blog. I needed a place to write down all of the shortcomings that Informix has compared to Oracle. Not necessarily for anyone to read but for me to have a place to express my frustrations with the Informix software.
With the recent release of Informix 11, (code name cheetah because it is fast :-) I thought this would be a good media to compile some of my comparisons between the two databases. Which reminds me, in the Oracle world there is a normal progression of software versions released by the company. Starting with Oracle 8i, I believe there were three major releases. Again with 9i there were two or three major releases and 10g had two or three major releases. Currently 11g has only one release. With Informix, if my memory server me correctly, version 6 was a mistake, so it is never mentioned. I don’t know what happened to version 8. Version 9 of Informix had, I believe, 5 major releases but 9.5 was changed to version 10. As far as I know 10.0 will be the only major release of this version because version 11 is generally available. My guess is some marketing person(s) set these versions to try and keep up with the Oracle numbering scheme. I guess if you can't beat them in features and support might as well just keep up with the version number.
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