ADABAS Versus DB2 An Evaluative Study by Butler Bloor Group

The DBMS Marketplace The OLTP Database  used for production data  designed for the production logic flow The Operational Data Mart  similar to the OLTP DB in Structure & Volume  used for heavy production-oriented query activity The Data Warehouse  Data Volume is much larger than in OLTP DB  Neutral Data Structures for Data Mining/Trawling

Performance-large OLTP Performance-large query Performance (General) Database Functionality Data Integration Distributed Features Server Architecture Portability EASE OF USE *** UTILITIES ***** DEVELOPMENT TOOLS ***** IBM Mainframe Database Ratings ADABAS Ratings

EASE OF USE ** UTILITIES **** DEVELOPMENT TOOLS ** DB2 IBM Mainframe Database Ratings Performance-large OLTP Performance-large query Performance (General) Database Functionality Data Integration Distributed Features Server Architecture Portability DB2 Ratings

Performance DB2 has a history of performance problems and IBM has historically addressed it by throwing more hardware resources at DB2, specifically memory ADABAS’ major strength has always been performance, regardless of platform. We have numerous success stories and references to support this claim. Note the performance ratings on Butler Bloor study.

Resource Consumption Resource consumption is a major weakness of DB2. DB2 is not only mainframe and memory hungry, it is a DASD eater as well because it stores data uncompressed ADABAS has always proven to be a cost effective database solution, requiring limited hardware resources. Unlike DB2, the ADABAS nucleus needs only 1 region to run in and, because of ADABAS’ unique ability to compress data, it is stingy on DASD resources

Relational Flexibility This is one area where DB2 shines. From the end user’s perspective, as well as for data modeling, the relational model greatly simplifies the concept of data storage and access ADABAS also supports the relational model. Moreover, ADABAS can support a wide variety of data models which can add flexibility and performance

Development Productivity Most of the DB2 related software products currently on the market focus on performance and tuning, system monitoring and database administration. CASE tools have failed miserably to provide productivity gains. Other offerings are limited to query tools Software AG has two different solutions for the productivity issue with NATURAL for DB2 as well as NATURAL for ADABAS

Desktop Access DB2 offers a superior solution in this category. Due to DB2’s market presence, and its support of SQL, there are a wide variety of desktop solutions for accessing DB2 data With the ADABAS SQL Server and ODBC driver interface we are able to provide direct access to ADABAS data via ODBC compliant desktop tools

Other Issues MUs and PEs: ADABAS has them, DB2 doesn’t Binding: Precompiling and binding a program package for DB2 Read-thru-locks: An option with DB2, the norm with ADABAS

Other Issues Cont’d Field lengths: Can’t change them in DB2, can in ADABAS as long as it is not FIXED format Database Reorganizations: In DB2 you cannot reorganize at the table level, only at the DB level. ADABAS allows you to do both  Reorders on Simple Tablespaces in DB2 don’t help anyway because the rows from other tables are intermingled

Other Issues Cont’d Reorganizations (cont’d): When you drop a tablespace in DB2, that space is not available until the next Reorganization. If you delete a file in ADABAS, the space can be reused immediately Row overflow: Rows can span a page in DB2, but causes overhead if it does. Records cannot span blocks in ADABAS

Other Issues Cont’d The 3 “R’s” of DB2: Reorganization, Runstats, Rebind. ADABAS needs only the first “R” and you’re ready to go Backups: DB2 does not copy indexes with backups. You must recover them separately. ADABAS includes both index and data in the backup

Other Issues Cont’d Data Compression: DB2 doesn’t do it, unless hardware compression is involved. Indexes are not compressed in DB2, nor is the catalog. DASD saving compression has always been a part of ADABAS architecture