Re: Oracle vs MS Access

It's like choosing between a Hummer and a Volkswagon Beetle... when you're trying to go four-wheeling.

But seriously.

Access is excellent if you want to contain VERY little data. It might even be good for development. It is very good as an ODBC link to another database that does all of the real processing. It's the best there is (and most reasonably priced) for a personal database. (Don't let someone argue Personal Oracle... Much too complex for non-database users)

But I would never suggest it in a production environment: Consider the following about Access (you can assume ORACLE and SQL Server can the following):

Weak, limited indexing
Weak Security
No storage configuration
No stored procedures
Often you have to compact and rebuild your database. Slow Transaction Processing

But fundamentally, and this is why Access will never work in a system that has even relatively few transactions: It really only supports one user opening it at a time. I imagine Access 2000 (I haven't looked at it as a solution since 95) has addressed this a little (or not, for a serious DBMS, MS wants you to use SQL Server). This means if there are 10 users doing 20 transactions per hour (200 transactions) you have to deal with significant back end problems (because it is geared for single users). The performance difference grows exponentially on exponential growths when you start adding more users.

Now, if you are trying to build something that can reside on one user's desktop to show the boss significant productivity, Access is the perfect choice (but in my experience, most people with that work ethic use excel and control the output themselves... or they can figure out how to use Access to track it)

Access has it's place:

Very small or very few transactions:

It is very easy to use, very easy to learn, and very, very affordable.(unlike Oracle or MS SQL Server, you don't need a full time 100K DBA Tuning and supporting (but this means Access isn't very well tuned), 2K - 100,000K in licensing, 5K-1,000K in hardware associations)

"Michael Johnson" <michael_at_bassline01.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message news:9brr1q$55t$1_at_newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Hi,
>
> 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!
>
> Thanks
>
>
Received on Sat Apr 21 2001 - 09:00:16 CDT