Triton Consulting have analyzed how easy or difficult it is to perform some common database administrator tasks with IBM DB2 and Oracle Database. They used a sophisticated methodology called complexity analysis to measure how easy or difficult it is to perform the tasks. Complexity analysis is a quantitative approach to objectively evaluating software usability, which incorporates both the number of steps involved in a task and the complexity of those steps. To make sure that they performed this comparison objectively, they enlisted the services of a 10-year Oracle DBA for performing the Oracle tasks and they used an experienced DB2 DBA for the DB2 tasks. The results were quite startling. For the chosen tasks, DB2 is significantly easier to use. The following chart summarizes their findings (smaller complexity numbers are better):
For the detailed report, including all details for executing the tasks on both IBM DB2 and Oracle Database, see Triton Consulting: Quantitative Complexity Analysis Executive Summary, DB2 9.7 v Oracle 11gR2
Conor, this looks interesting, but what is the scale? If something takes twice as long – but that only amounts to 4 seconds instead of 2 – it means a lot less than taking an hour instead of half an hour. Curious.
Hi Merv,
The report includes details like this for the tested scenarios. For instance, here are quotes from the document:
- “Our projections show that the Oracle Database installation task for the specified environment could take over 100 minutes of DBA interaction time to complete. In contrast, the same installation task for DB2 would take a little over 60 minutes of interaction time.”
- “Our projections show that the Oracle Database data compression task for the specified environment could take approximately 46 minutes of DBA interaction time to complete. In contrast, the same data compression task for DB2 would take approximately 23 minutes of DBA interaction time.”
- “Our projections show that the Oracle Database index compression task could take approximately 36 minutes of DBA interaction time to complete. In contrast, the DB2 index compression task requires no time from the DBA because it happens automatically.”
- “Our projections show that the Oracle Database backup and recovery task for the specified environment could take over 80 minutes of DBA interaction time to complete. In contrast, the same backup and recovery task for DB2 would take a little over 10 minutes of DBA interaction time.”
- “Our projections show that the Oracle Database automatic memory management task for the specified environment could take over 100 minutes of DBA interaction time to complete. In contrast, the same automatic memory management task for DB2 would take a little over 10 minutes.”
Note that there are many variables that contribute to these times. These variables have been noted in the assumptions sections.
That’s right. As a oracle dba, we have to do more work but less offer
….