Re: Sybase or Oracle? (No flame wars please)

Yuan John Jiang (yjj_at_mci.net) wrote:
: Daniel S. Hayes wrote:
:
: > To start off, you assumed incorrectly; Sybase is faster than Oracle. I
:
: Sybase has the reputation of raw speed. But what happens
: when you have simultaneous updates and record locking is
: involved? I heard that Sybase locks the whole table whereas
: Oracle only locks the record. Is it true.

Sybase does page level locking which has proven to be pretty effective in the OLTP arena. A page is 2K, so however many rows fit on a page is how many will be affected.

: I don't have extensive experience with either product. Yet, I'm
: also at the position to select one. We need some sort of replicated
: or distributed database with several sites across the country.
: Some tables require almost instantaneous synchronization
: with simultaneous writes/updates whereas others can afford less
: frequent (~ 1 hour) synchronization.
:
: The network communication among the sites need to be secure since
: the traffic goes through the public Internet.
:
: I know both Sybase and Oracle can do replication. But how do
: they compare in terms of replication speed and security?
: Which one fits the requirements better?

Sybase has Replication Server which has gained a fairly good reputation. It is a complex product and requires serious planning and set-up resources, but once it's up, people seem satisfied with the results.

I don't know much about Oracle's replication capabilities. I understand that it's more of a snapshot approach -- rather than distributing the transactions. But that might have changed by now.

				Hope this helps
				Teresa Larson

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