Re: Oracle vs MS Access

From: Tanel Põder <tanel_at_altavista.kom>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 15:59:00 +0200
Message-ID: <3ae191e8$0$233$ba624cac@news.uninet.ee>

> I am a relative newcomer to databases. Could someone enlighten me with the
> pros and cons of the above please.
>
> As general as you like!

The main difference is that Oracle is capable for client-server type processing, Access is not.
That is:

If you got your Oracle database on a server & client application on your PC, then server takes care of fetching the right records from thousands/millions of others in the tables, thus not utilizing your PC too much. That is good, generally.

With access, even if you have your access datafiles shared on a fileserver, when you execute a query, your access client retrieves much more "raw" data from the fileserver, and your local pc has to find the right records from the retreived part of datafile.
This is bad, because it generates a lot of network traffic + your pc has to be more powerful. It'll get very slow, if you want to do some reporting like that.

Sorry if it got too fuzzy.
Tanel Poder
a DBA Received on Sat Apr 21 2001 - 08:59:00 CDT