I would completely disagree with the opinion below.
I was (and still remain) in this line of work for the last 15 years and
have been an application programmer for a number of years before that.
On East Coast of US as well as in California and Mid West 99 % of 500
Fortune companies are running DB2 as a database of choice on both:
Mainframe and Mid Range platforms.
You will not find a single Brokerage House, Bank or Insurance Company in
NY, NJ, PA, CT, MD, CA or MA that will not have DB2 as a primary
database for their corporate platforms starting from the HR and up to
the Customer Service. If you are talking about Trading or Claim
processing then this is a DB2 database monopoly held by IBM.
There are several reasons for companies to do that:
1. Cheaper overall licensing coast from IBM (No seed licensing like
Sybase and Oracle).
2. Simplicity in operation and maintenance of DB2 compare to
Oracle.
3. Better benchmark and performance.
4. Better integration with hardware (both: MVS and Mid Range
platforms.
5. Excellent customer service and technical support from IBM (24x7
Passport Advantage, etc.)
6. New and improved utility suite provided by IBM for any platform
that running UDB DB2 (from laptop to a Mainframe).
Quite contrary to the statement below DB2 UDB is gaining market share on
both Mainframe and Open platforms.
I am working as an independent contractor for the past 12 years and have
done quite a few DB2 projects for large companies. Most of them were
either building brand new DB2 environment for the existing or new
applications or conversion of Informix, Sybase and Oracle to UDB DB2.
Recently, conversion effort by large companies from other platforms to
DB2 has increased quite a bit.
Yes, Oracle does maintain quite a presence in the corporate world.
However this is a database of choice for a web based services and ready
to deploy packaged applications purchased from the small vendors. The
backbone processing of the large corporate world was, is and will remain
IBM DB2.
Best of luck to you what ever your choice may be, but I would strongly
advise to go DB2 route if you want higher market exposure and better
rates.
Dmitry.
Certified IBM professional
UDB DB2 DBA
MVS DB2 DBA
Certified Sybase DBA
-----Original Message-----
From: YIF
[mailto:db2udbdba-ezmlmshield-x12370306.[Email address protected]
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 11:05 AM
To: LazyDBA Discussion
Subject: Re: DBA Role
It all depends on where you are located, in Canada; I would say since
the
release of 7 MS SQL now dominating the market for small to medium
companies, Oracle is dominating the higher market (Government and
Enterprise Databases).
Overseas, Oracle is used to be pretty much everything, now small
companies
and governments are introducing MS SQL 2000.
I started with legacy databases in early 90s, and then moved to MS SQL,
but for the past 4 I'm doing mainly Oracle. I would say MS SQL is the
easiest,
Oracle is the hardest but it is the best, you have to be good on number
of operating systems specially UNIX, but it pays good and training is
everywhere, I see DB2 is loosing a big share of the market to Oracle and
MS SQL, I wonder where will DB2 will be in 5 years from now.
Their biggest customers were financial institutions now this is not the
case, financial institutions are moving to Oracle.
Certification is good but it does not tell much about how good the DBA
is,
in my opinion the best DBA is the DBA who came from development
background.
My last word, if you are in North America, then MS SQL should be your
number 1 choice, then move to Oracle.
[Email address protected]
> I am currently looking into exploring other career paths within the IT
> industry, specifically the DBA role. I am hoping that someone will be
able
> to provide some insight into the DBA role, for example, which is the
best
> path to go...DB2, Oracle, SQL, etc.? Are there any books you can
> recommend? What is life like in the day and life of a DBA? What are
the
> different avenues available to a DBA? What certifications do employers
> look for in a DBA?
>
> Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
> Thank you,
> Jessica
>
>
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