Reasons for moving to version 8 from 6.5

iansta · Post by **iansta** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 7:47 pm

Guys, I'm putting together a case for moving from 6.5 to version 8 of ds. My advatages are better support, compatability with other products,
Option to use both parallel and server jobs
Faster
More transformations avaliable such as slowly changing dimensions
Better connectiviy
Enterprise packs
Medata Data Server
Improved SQL builder

Reasons for Staying on 6.5
No leaning curve
If its not broke don't fix it
smaller footprint

I would be greatful if you would let me know of anything else you can think of.

Thanks

Ian

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:06 pm

You do realize that your 'Option to use both parallel and server jobs' comes at a price? If all you have licensed at the moment is the Server component, then an upgrade to the Enterprise Edition (which is what gets you PX) is neither free nor cheap. The upgrade to 8.x (with again just Server licensed) would be covered under maintenance, I assume.

iansta · Post by **iansta** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:40 pm

Craig, Yes I realised that there would be a license/training cost to moving to the Enterprise addition. Can you thing of any more advantages of 8 over 6.5?

Thanks

Ian

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:33 pm

Not much for server-only sites. Connectors and parameter sets: good for new development, no value for existing jobs.

Most of the goodies are for parallel jobs - as Craig says, that's a whole new licence.

iansta · Post by **iansta** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:49 pm

Okay guys, its proably contained in another post, but what advantages would they get by going enterprise, apart from scalability, more transformations, the strategic product, etc.

Cheers

Ian

vmcburney · Post by **vmcburney** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:46 pm

Metadata Workbench - they are getting cross product impact analysis and data lineage working. Wait for 8.1 for column level though - currently it is at the table level. Version 8 is harder to install as you need a database and websphere application server in addition to DataStage. Information Server Blade fixes this - you get the hardware with the software already installed and running. Parallel sorts can be over a hundred times faster than server sorts, enterprise database stages can be up to 250% faster than server edition API stages. That's before you add the advantages of running in parallel.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:40 pm

There's hundreds of thousands of advantage$ for IBM, too!