hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick) (08/12/86)
There are seldom clearcut winners and losers in performance. Generally a user is looking for, not so much a global best product, as one where the tradeoffs made are appropriate for his usage. Many vendors take a long-term view, and do not want to get customers whose application is inappropriate for their products or whose expectations are bound to be thwarted. It is obvious that vendors will attempt to present information in a way that puts their best foot forward. But benchmarks and other information from vendors can still be useful. The majority of sales people with whom I deal are ethical people, and attempt to prevent a fair impression of their product. Those few who do not operate in this way generally find that their business with my group is limited. I understand that many may consider vendor-supplied benchmarks inappropriate for Usenet. For this reason many vendors will no doubt prefer to refrain from posting them. However I personally would be happy to see them, as long as the postings are written by technical people, include descriptions of how they were done and their likely limitations, and as long as they do not contain overt advertisements. Performance evaluation is an important topic, and vendor personnel are often in a position to spend more time doing this sort of testing than most users are.
metro@asi.UUCP (Metro T. Sauper) (08/14/86)
I feel that vendor benchmarks are valuable. Obviously vendors will come up with programs which make their particular software shine above the competition. This has great value as long as the benchmark programs are published as part of the benchmark. Who would better know how to drive a database system at its maximum than the vendor? Examples of high performance benchmarks might give valuable insight to the best (intended) way of using a database package. On the Aside -- I see no problems with "advertisements" which have technical value without purchasing the product. In the example of benchmarks, they not only show where some programs are better than others, they quite often show difficiencies between systems that are not even the "favored" system. Metro T. Sauper, Jr. ihnp4!ll1!bpa!metro
robinson@ecsvax.UUCP (Gerard Robinson) (08/14/86)
I don't always have my facts straight, but is there not a Database Derby going on/just completed in which both RTI and Oracle are/were participants? Is there some way that these results can be posted to the net? Thanks. Gerard Robinson UNC-CH School of Medicine