Forrester's Enterprise DBMS report

There is an interesting report from Noel Yuhannah at Forrester which is
available via http://www.ingres.com/about/press/09-0708-dbms.php.

Just glancing through it I thought most of it made sense, but Figure 2
on page 8 has a couple of puzzling entries.

First, comparing Ingres and MySQL on a scale of 0 to 5, Ingres scores
2.76 for data types and integrity, and MySQL scores 2.81. Never mind
that those are strange dimensions to combine, I would have thought
that MySQL's notoriously cavalier attitude to data integrity would
vastly offset whatever additional data types it might offer, no matter
how convenient they are.

I am even more puzzled about Ingres scoring only 3.8 for committment to
its strategy versus MySQL's 4.6. Of all things that are currently in
doubt about MySQL, Oracle's committment to it must be faint at best.
Even more bizarrely, this same line item says Oracle's committment to
Oracle is only 4.4--suggesting they are more committed to MySQL!
IPMSL! :-)

Still, an interesting report. Take a look.

--
Roy

UK Ingres User Association Conference 2010 will be on Tuesday June 8 2010
Go to http://www.iua.org.uk/join to get on the mailing list.

Roy Hann wrote:
> There is an interesting report from Noel Yuhannah at Forrester which is
> available via http://www.ingres.com/about/press/09-0708-dbms.php.
>
> Just glancing through it I thought most of it made sense, but Figure 2
> on page 8 has a couple of puzzling entries.
>
> First, comparing Ingres and MySQL on a scale of 0 to 5, Ingres scores
> 2.76 for data types and integrity, and MySQL scores 2.81. Never mind
> that those are strange dimensions to combine, I would have thought
> that MySQL's notoriously cavalier attitude to data integrity would
> vastly offset whatever additional data types it might offer, no matter
> how convenient they are.
>
> I am even more puzzled about Ingres scoring only 3.8 for committment to
> its strategy versus MySQL's 4.6. Of all things that are currently in
> doubt about MySQL, Oracle's committment to it must be faint at best.
> Even more bizarrely, this same line item says Oracle's committment to
> Oracle is only 4.4--suggesting they are more committed to MySQL!
> IPMSL! :-)
>
> Still, an interesting report. Take a look.
>

How much interest does anyone take of that report when deciding on a
database?

For example what weighting would you give to

a) "I read Forrestors report and we should go for ingres"
b) "Fruity Joes website takes 30,000 orders a day and they use ingres"

I can't comment on the magic number in forrestors report (I haven't yet
had a look), but how influential is it really?

Would Mr Hann be starting the UKMySQLexIngres group if ingres scored 0.1
in vision compared to 9.9 for MySQL?

OK, it's a bit tongue in cheek, but do people use these reports to make
big decisions or just to sound well informed in meetings (this isn't a
reference to you, Roy). Not that I have a cynical view of how choices
are really made, or anything.

Paul

On net wrote:

> How much interest does anyone take of that report when deciding on a
> database?

It would be absurd to suggest anyone would decide to by a DBMS on the
basis of a report like this.

But anyone who does their own evaluation and ends up wanting to
recommend a DBMS other Oracle is going to feel exposed. A report like
this serves as a sanity-check. If it endorses your preferred product
it means there is no good reason not go ahead with it.

The follow-on from that is that you will save yourself some time
(and/or grief) if you evaluate the products it short-lists. So it is
very interesting that Ingres comes out of this particular report
looking very good indeed.

--
Roy

UK Ingres User Association Conference 2010 will be on Tuesday June 8 2010
Go to http://www.iua.org.uk/join to get on the mailing list.

On Jul 9, 2009, at 12:14 PM, Roy Hann wrote:

> On net wrote:
>
>> How much interest does anyone take of that report when deciding on a
>> database?
>
> It would be absurd to suggest anyone would decide to by a DBMS on the
> basis of a report like this.
>

It would be absurd to listen to anything Gartner or Forrester puke out.

But we keep doing it. Like we pay stockbrokers that make us broker, and
listen to weather forecasters that don't bother to step outside and
look up.

OK ... I need to find my happy place and lower my blood pressure.

Cheers,

Michael Leo
Director of Managed Services
Kettle River Consulting

MLeo@KettleRiverConsulting.com
+1 612-859-2108 (cell)
+1 612-605-1978 (fax)

Roy Hann wrote:
[snip]
>
> First, comparing Ingres and MySQL on a scale of 0 to 5, Ingres scores
> 2.76 for data types and integrity, and MySQL scores 2.81. Never mind
> that those are strange dimensions to combine, I would have thought
> that MySQL's notoriously cavalier attitude to data integrity would
> vastly offset whatever additional data types it might offer, no matter
> how convenient they are.
[snip]

"60% of the time, it works all the time." -- "Anchorman: The Legend of
Ron Burgundy"


Mark R. Winston
www.datavailable.com

This is a report which comes from a high-profile 'industry analyst' ,
Forrester, and it is positive about Ingres. Since this is a relatively
new phenomenon we might want to compliment Ingres Corp for doing a good
job. According to Forrester, Ingres is in the 'Strong Performers wave'.
It's been a long time since an analyst said that about Ingres...

Apart from Roy's comments about the Ingres and
MySQL scores used in the table on page 8, there is another significant
point to be made about the report. It does not look at 'Pricing and
licensing'. There is no mention of this in the text, and especially not
in the Executive Summary where I would have thought it would be most
important. Indeed, in the important relative score table on page 8 we
see that the weighting for 'Pricing and licensing' is zero.

In other words, the report does not take 'Pricing and licensing' into
account. A rather strange omission given the economic times we live
in. And I wonder what would happen to Ingres's position in the
Forrester Wave diagram if the analyst looked at cost.

Wojtek

Wojtek Rappak wrote:
> This is a report which comes from a high-profile 'industry analyst' ,
> Forrester, and it is positive about Ingres. Since this is a relatively
> new phenomenon we might want to compliment Ingres Corp for doing a good
> job. According to Forrester, Ingres is in the 'Strong Performers wave'.
> It's been a long time since an analyst said that about Ingres...
>
> Apart from Roy's comments about the Ingres and
> MySQL scores used in the table on page 8, there is another significant
> point to be made about the report. It does not look at 'Pricing and
> licensing'. There is no mention of this in the text, and especially not
> in the Executive Summary where I would have thought it would be most
> important. Indeed, in the important relative score table on page 8 we
> see that the weighting for 'Pricing and licensing' is zero.
>
> In other words, the report does not take 'Pricing and licensing' into
> account. A rather strange omission given the economic times we live
> in. And I wonder what would happen to Ingres's position in the
> Forrester Wave diagram if the analyst looked at cost.
>
> Wojtek
>


Good points Wojtek, though I can see all kinds of problems with
evaluating cost. I've often regarded the negotiations for licencing
software as a bit like buying double glazing. "well the list price is $X
but we can do you a good deal on that depending on..". Vendors reduce
prices for volume and prestige projects that will gain them favourable
press and publicity, so cost is a difficullt issue.

I think the broad-brush messages of the report might have some influence
but I'm skeptical that many involved in the purchasing decision really
take much notice of such reports.

This isn't a dig at ingres, who should be encouraged by a more
favourable review in the report.

On 2009-07-09, Roy Hann <specially@processed.almost.meat> wrote:
> There is an interesting report from Noel Yuhannah at Forrester which is
> available via http://www.ingres.com/about/press/09-0708-dbms.php.
>
> Just glancing through it I thought most of it made sense, but Figure 2
> on page 8 has a couple of puzzling entries.
>
> First, comparing Ingres and MySQL on a scale of 0 to 5, Ingres scores
> 2.76 for data types and integrity, and MySQL scores 2.81. Never mind
> that those are strange dimensions to combine, I would have thought
> that MySQL's notoriously cavalier attitude to data integrity would
> vastly offset whatever additional data types it might offer, no matter
> how convenient they are.

That's just plain nuts. The extra data types MySQL offers are mainly
syntactic sugar for stuff that is easily handled by check constraints
or triggers in Ingres. And data integrity in MySQL is non-existant if
you use MyISAM, and to add insult to injury, MySQL will not even warn
you of the fact that it's going to ignore your lovely integrity
constraints. If you go with InnoDB, you must forego basic stuff like
indexing of text columns. MySQL should be compared to sqlite and MS
Access, not Ingres!

--
Emiliano

"Issues: Ingres is not supported by many packaged applications, which is
a key issue. Also, many
existing Ingres customers remain concerned about the difficulty in
finding Ingres skills."

This mention in the report is a very strong issue to be addressed by
Ingres Corp. IMHO.

Leandro Pinto Fava wrote:
> "Issues: Ingres is not supported by many packaged applications, which is
> a key issue. Also, many
> existing Ingres customers remain concerned about the difficulty in
> finding Ingres skills."
>
> This mention in the report is a very strong issue to be addressed by
> Ingres Corp. IMHO.

A lot of people with ingres skills would say exactly the opposite.

If there was a real demand for ingres skills, then "they will come".

Most job adverts requiring ingres skills tend to have ingres as one of
several skill requirements that tend to feature Oracle or SQL-server
with ingres as a nice-to-have rather than the main requirement.