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Oracle Database is dramatically more complex to install than DB2 9.7

Carol Davis-Mann

Carol Davis-Mann

November 10, 2010

In our last blog we reported that DB2 9.7 is streets ahead of Oracle Database 11gR2 in our recent ease of use study.   Today we are sharing with you a more detailed look at the results from the first task – Installation.

During our study we found that although the installations on both platforms are fairly similar, Oracle Database requires additional steps to be implemented prior to the actual install.  This makes Oracle database significantly more complex to install than DB2.  The additional steps required include:

  • Creating OS groups and users
  • Checking kernel parameters
  • Setting shell limits for the Oracle Database user
  • Creating required directories
  • Configuring the environment for the user

In contrast to this, DB2 includes many of these tasks as part of the main installation process which is guided by the DB2 setup wizard.

“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.” Iqbal Goralwalla, Head of DB2 Midrange, Triton Consulting.

 

The DB2 complexity metric for the Install task is nearly 43% lower than Oracle Database and can have a significant impact in various aspects of total cost of ownership.

The white paper with a breakdown for each task can be downloaded here – https://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/iwm/web/signup.do?lang=en_US&source=sw-infomgt&S_PKG=analyst-db2_oracle_triton

Complexity analysis is a new approach to evaluating and communicating the usability of software and is based on established research as described in this document https://www-01.ibm.com/software/ucd/Resources/ComplexityAnalysisDGarticle.pdf.