IDS Forum

Re: DBA Demand

Posted By: Martin Fuerderer
Date: Thursday, 31 October 2013, at 5:42 a.m.

In Response To: DBA Demand (Harold Luse)

Hi,

real and meaningful numbers to answer your question
are hard to get. I'm weary of deducing from a (perceived)
declining demand for Informix DBAs that the Informix
product is used less. There are other important factors
at play ...:

Well known Informix user Walmart has reduced the number
of DBAs for their Informix systems even though at the same
time they increased the number of Informix systems deployed.
I have no up-to-date numbers, but the ratio should be
well over 10.000 Informix systems administered by 5-6 DBAs.

If today you are doing a phone call over IP, chances are more
than 50% that the call is going through a device with an
Informix server.

Over time, Informix has gotten better and better at requiring
less administration, which means for smaller deployments of
Informix server, administration often is anything but a
full-time job. While 20 years ago, this might have meant, that
a full-time Informix DBA has a lot of time to explore new
features, versions, technologies ... in today's much more
profit-oriented and money-saving world, the task of
administering Informix systems much likely became a
"do-also" activity for a different job-title.

Finally, a nice (but still true) anecdote, from this forum:

A few years ago someone asked for help to "find his
Informix system". The person was a month or two into his
new job of DBA for various non-Informix systems, when
one morning he got user-complaints that some critical
application doesn't work. Someone at least was able to tell
him, that this application uses an Informix database. That
was about all the information he could get. Up to this morning
he was unaware of any Informix system that he's responsible
for, and nobody knew even, on which machine it is running
and where that machine might be (physically). Once he
found the machine (tracing back the IP address from the
application), nobody could tell him, how to set the environment
for adiministrative access to the running Informix server ...
When this new DBA got hired, everybody had
completely forgotten, that they have an Informix system
serving a critical application - in their own house.

"Informix - set it and forget it" ... for some people this was
not just a marketing slogan ... apparently they took it as
advice and followed it duly ... ;-)

Regards, Martin
--
Martin Fuerderer
IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany
Information Management

Read about the Informix Warehouse Accelerator:
http://tinyurl.com/the-iwa-blog

IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH
Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Martina Koederitz
Board of Management: Dirk Wittkopp
Corporate Seat: Boeblingen, Germany
Reg.-Gericht: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 243294

From: "Harold Luse" <hluse@centurylink.net>
To: ids@iiug.org,
Date: 10/30/2013 23:42
Subject: DBA Demand [31830]
Sent by: ids-bounces@iiug.org

Quick question: Is the demand for Informix DBAs increasing, decreasing or
staying the same? When IBM bought Informix, it looked like they were going

to kill it, and I got out of the field, but it looks like Informix is
coming
back. Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Harold Luse, Owner
TGR Solutions, LLC

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Messages In This Thread

• DBA Demand
  Harold Luse -- Sunday, 27 October 2013, at 11:03 p.m.
  • Re: DBA Demand
    NEIL TRUBY -- Monday, 28 October 2013, at 4:27 p.m.
    • Re: DBA Demand
      Fernando Nunes -- Wednesday, 30 October 2013, at 9:08 p.m.
    • Re: DBA Demand
      medkba -- Wednesday, 30 October 2013, at 10:51 p.m.
  • Re: DBA Demand
    Art Kagel -- Wednesday, 30 October 2013, at 6:58 p.m.
    • Re: DBA Demand
      NEIL TRUBY -- Friday, 1 November 2013, at 2:20 p.m.
      • Re: DBA Demand
        Martin Fuerderer -- Monday, 4 November 2013, at 10:09 a.m.
  • Re: DBA Demand
    Martin Fuerderer -- Thursday, 31 October 2013, at 5:42 a.m.

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