Sybase

My company is a heavy user of Sybase databases, in particular Sybase ASE 12 and Sybase IQ. We're thinking wether we should stay with them or change to any other DB engine. Do any of you guys know anything about Sybase? How stable are they? We heard they were losing marketshare by the hour, but then we see lots of wanted adds for Sybase DBA's.

TIA

Spike Jonze
Monday, May 10, 2004

I hear Microsoft has a great 12 step program to get you off Sysbase and onto SQL Server, but seriously are you looking to change for any other reason than you hear that Sybase may be bleeding off market share?  Are you getting ready to upgrade?  Are you encountering performance issues?  Do you need increased reliability?  How about an open source solution, I hear that they are very popular?

L. Ellison
Monday, May 10, 2004

We've been thinking about this for a long time, and for us support in the long run is *very* important.

About performance, no. But then again we're not experienced with any other database engines, only the odd SQL Server to support the odd Access form app.

Spike Jonze
Monday, May 10, 2004

Sybase's market share erosion isn't really an issue (and might not even really be an erosion, depending on how you count).
Sybase as a company is solid, and ASE is evolving with many new features being added (12.5.2 was released just last week).
Personally I've found their support to be really good, and performance has always been sarisfactory for me.
I think that migrating your systems to another vendor would be a major undertaking, not to mention re-training, etc. I see no reason to start down that road from the technical or long-term support point of views.

Michael

Michael Peppler
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Sybase is a  good company with good product range which I assume you already use. Just to remind you that more than half of the Wall street, the most critical data in DOE and that famous US agency run on Sybase. I work for both Sybase and Oracle and believe me if I see a good product I know a good product.  Besides there are products from Sybase like replication server which are the Market leader. and neither Oracle and MSSQL are even near. There is a great demand for Sybase and Sybase products and hence that is the reason you see those adds. If I were you I would stick with Sybase.

Mich Talebzadeh
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Sybase the company is well-run and quite profitable.  Their recent partnerships with PeopleSoft and SAP would never have happened if there were any doubt in the industry about their long-term presence.

If your requirements include all three of:

1. Price/performance (very much including human hours)
2. Quality of support
3. Not being locked onto one platform

then Sybase matches or beats the competition.  That's not taking account of migration costs.  Your concern is support -- Sybase support beats Oracle's by a mile!

Joe L.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Hello;

I have used Sybase and Oracle, the latest version of Sybase 12.5.3, I found it rock solid. It is easier to manage that Oracle, by yards. Feature wise, this version of Sybase has some extras that oracle 9i does not.  Personally I am a Sybase fan. Oracle is more of programmer’s database. They tend to like the 100 of functions they can use, even though most coding is done out side of the database. Sybase is loosing market share simply because of marketing. Buy AIX, get DB2 for free for a few years.  It is all about making short term $ savings, and not about long term support costs.

Steven Cruz
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Sybase and SQL Server used to be near-clones.  Transact-SQL, etc. were the same.

Have not used Sybase to any great degree since v 10, so I don't know how much they've diverged in the past few years.  Still, I would bet a move from Sybase to SQL Server would be easier than any other.

AMS
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Sybase is a great DB platform to be on. You always have the SQL Server to bail you out if things go south. MS even has a Sybase->SQL Server upgrade script. If in fact Sybase is loosing market share, this is to your advantage as one would think they would work that much harder to keep your business.

m
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Sybase IQ is a killer DBMS for data warehouses and reporting databases. Only Kalido could possibly challenge it, unless you are scaling up to multi-Terabyte data bases (Oracle, Teradata, DB2 country), and even then it still can kick butt in many environments.

The "base" Sybase DBMS is fast, and Sybase Anywhere is probably outstanding (if it is still the old Watcom SQL database product underneath). Also, if you have a lot of Transact-SQL code, it's easy to port to MS SQL Server.

As Tom Kyte (Oracle guru) says, do you want to be locked into ONE operating system?

Data Miner
Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Sybase added hundreds of ASE customers last year alone.  I don't know where you get your facts about them "losing market share", but I would suggest you do your own research on this topic to convince yourself.  Sybase has industry award winning support programs including their own newsgroup based support system http://www.sybase.com/support/newsgroups .  Long term, I don't see them going anywhere especially wrt to the ASE/ASA/Replication product lines.  They are adding hundreds of people to their development staffs for these products as we speak.

K Sherlock
Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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