Oops, a couple of items I didn't make clear:
- I was never able to compare the cost of Oracle support with the cost of
Microsoft support. Oracle prices annual maintenance, which includes the
right to upgrade to a new version of Oracle. MS prices out per incident or
for all MS software at a location. If you can estimate the number of
calls/month, then you could compare.
- Oracle DBA salary vs. MS SQL DBA salary. I feel the difference is
primarily due to less experience, training. I find it ironic that this
probably causes less reliability for Microsoft (Microsoft has even
complained that organizations don't assign their best people to administer
MS products), yet then Microsoft brags about how you can save money because
their people are cheaper.
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 11:14 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
I recently prepared a total cost comparison between Oracle and MS SQL. I
appreciate the support several people on this list provided me. In return,
here are some of the main points I learned.
- For smaller systems, investigate whether Oracle Standard Edition will
meet your requirements. For example, most people assume that to use
replication, you need EE. For our purposes the basic replication that comes
with SE was adequate.
- Microsoft also offers SQL in both EE and SE versions. Thanks very much
to Gints Plivna for providing me a feature-by-feature comparison between the
different versions. MS SE is not equivalent to Oracle SE. In most cases, the
more valid comparison is between MS SQL EE and Oracle SE.
- For maintenance, there are two parts to consider: Upgrade privilege and
support. Oracle bundles both of these together. Make sure Microsoft is
priced with Software Assurance, which gives upgrade privilege. Microsoft
prices support by the incident or by the location (all Microsoft software).
I was never able to get a comparison.
- MS SQL EE with Software Assurance is actually more expensive than Oracle
SE. Priced by the CPU.
- Since pricing is by CPU and RISC systems offer higher database
performance (according to many people on this list) and Oracle offers higher
performance in a head-to-head comparison (according to the recently
published Eweek benchmark), I compared Oracle SE on a 1-CPU Sun box with MS
SQL on a 2-CPU Intel box. The Intel box was cheaper, but those two CPUs
really kill you on licensing! In my mind I am convinced that both setups
could offer equivalent performance.
- I was provided figures that the average DBA salary (including health,
vacation, etc.) on Oracle is $85,000 and on MS SQL $68,500. A leading
industry analyst stated that the main reason MS SQL sites have less
reliability is because there are few processes to ensure high availability,
high performance. Developing these processes in the MS SQL world is more
trial-and-error while these are well-documented in the Oracle world. I would
add that several authors that participate in this list have created that
documentation.
Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
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Received on Fri Apr 05 2002 - 11:54:08 CST
