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DBMS > Informix vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Spark SQL vs. Sphinx

System Properties Comparison Informix vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Spark SQL vs. Sphinx

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines
NameInformix  Xexclude from comparisonMicrosoft Azure Data Explorer  Xexclude from comparisonSpark SQL  Xexclude from comparisonSphinx  Xexclude from comparison
DescriptionA secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things dataFully managed big data interactive analytics platformSpark SQL is a component on top of 'Spark Core' for structured data processingOpen source search engine for searching in data from different sources, e.g. relational databases
Primary database modelRelational DBMS infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDBRelational DBMS infocolumn orientedRelational DBMSSearch engine
Secondary database modelsDocument store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS infowith Informix TimeSeries Extension
Document store infoIf a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-types/­dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store infothis is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine infosupport for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorer/­time-series-analysis
DB-Engines Ranking infomeasures the popularity of database management systemsranking trend
Trend Chart
Score17.12
Rank#34  Overall
#21  Relational DBMS
Score3.80
Rank#81  Overall
#43  Relational DBMS
Score18.04
Rank#33  Overall
#20  Relational DBMS
Score5.95
Rank#55  Overall
#5  Search engines
Websitewww.ibm.com/­products/­informixazure.microsoft.com/­services/­data-explorerspark.apache.org/­sqlsphinxsearch.com
Technical documentationinformix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/­support/­knowledgecenter/­SSGU8G/­welcomeIfxServers.html
docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­data-explorerspark.apache.org/­docs/­latest/­sql-programming-guide.htmlsphinxsearch.com/­docs
DeveloperIBM, HCL Technologies infoEffective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.MicrosoftApache Software FoundationSphinx Technologies Inc.
Initial release1984201920142001
Current release14.10.FC5, November 2020cloud service with continuous releases3.5.0 ( 2.13), September 20233.5.1, February 2023
License infoCommercial or Open Sourcecommercial infofree developer edition availablecommercialOpen Source infoApache 2.0Open Source infoGPL version 2, commercial licence available
Cloud-based only infoOnly available as a cloud servicenoyesnono
DBaaS offerings (sponsored links) infoDatabase as a Service

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Implementation languageC, C++ and JavaScalaC++
Server operating systemsAIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
hostedLinux
OS X
Windows
FreeBSD
Linux
NetBSD
OS X
Solaris
Windows
Data schemeyesFixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)yesyes
Typing infopredefined data types such as float or dateyes infoSince Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypesyes infobool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­query/­scalar-data-typesyesno
XML support infoSome form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.yesno
Secondary indexesyesall fields are automatically indexednoyes infofull-text index on all search fields
SQL infoSupport of SQLyesKusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subsetSQL-like DML and DDL statementsSQL-like query language (SphinxQL)
APIs and other access methodsJDBC
JSON API infoMongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API
Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary protocol
Supported programming languages.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R
Java
Python
R
Scala
C++ infounofficial client library
Java
Perl infounofficial client library
PHP
Python
Ruby infounofficial client library
Server-side scripts infoStored proceduresyesYes, possible languages: KQL, Python, Rnono
Triggersyesyes infosee docs.microsoft.com/­en-us/­azure/­kusto/­management/­updatepolicynono
Partitioning methods infoMethods for storing different data on different nodesShardingSharding infoImplicit feature of the cloud serviceyes, utilizing Spark CoreSharding infoPartitioning is done manually, search queries against distributed index is supported
Replication methods infoMethods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodesMulti-source replication
Source-replica replication
yes infoImplicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.nonenone
MapReduce infoOffers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methodsnoSpark connector (open source): github.com/­Azure/­azure-kusto-sparkno
Consistency concepts infoMethods to ensure consistency in a distributed systemImmediate ConsistencyEventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency
Foreign keys infoReferential integrityyesnonono
Transaction concepts infoSupport to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of dataACIDnonono
Concurrency infoSupport for concurrent manipulation of datayesyesyesyes
Durability infoSupport for making data persistentyesyesyesyes infoThe original contents of fields are not stored in the Sphinx index.
In-memory capabilities infoIs there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.yesnono
User concepts infoAccess controlUsers with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controlsAzure Active Directory Authenticationnono

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InformixMicrosoft Azure Data ExplorerSpark SQLSphinx
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