nass@theseas.ntua.gr (Nassos Papakostas) (04/23/91)
Hello out there! Some help and/or guidance is asked from all you database experts on the topic of selecting a Relational DBMS. My current task consists of selecting a RDBMS. The job is the construction of a hydrological DB (for the Civil Engineering Department), to store the bulk of data collected from various sources, eg. water level of a river/lake, rain, weather (humidity, temperature etc.). The project will be done in two phases: first, a little pilot project on a 386 UNIX (Interactive 2.2) PC, then the big thing, on a distributed (over a WAN) system, based on RISC Workstations (eg. Sparc2, IBM 6000, HP 7xx etc.). Due to the fact that the 'big' project requires the collaboration of various Ministries, each one not confident enough to give away its data to some central authority, the word 'distributed' is essential. Another characteristic of this DB is that after the data has been inserted, the more common operation on them will be 'select' (very few 'updates' - and certainly not over the network: all updates will be performed locally). The main contenders are INGRES and ORACLE (but any other proposal will be considered). The selection though will be based on the following criteria (not in any particular order): - Performance, on both the 386 and the W/S platform. - Good programming environment (4GL, SQL support, Precompilers and Embedded SQL, lack of bugs etc.). - Distributed capability: how good the system is over a Network, what kind of Transparency exists (and at what cost/CPU load/Network traffic ?) etc. - Fault tolerance. - Support and in general company policy. - Co-operation with statistical (eg. SPSS, SYSTAT, ? ), graphics and GIS (eg. ARCinfo) packages. - Technological state of the product. Any hints and info on any aspect of the problem are welcome. Tell me, please, your opinion/experience about those 2 (or other) products... Thanks in advance! Nassos Papakostas, Internet: nass@theseas.ntua.gr National Technical U. of Athens, UUCP: ...!mcsun!ariadne!theseas!nass EE & CS Department, Computer Science Division, Greece.