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Re: SQL SERVER vs ORACLE

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_exesolutions.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 09:48:56 -0800
Message-ID: <3E26F088.ACE4D79D@exesolutions.com>


Andy wrote:

> You'll find lots of discussions and most if not all of it is biased. On
> this site you'll find lots of people who make Oracle databases rock and who
> think MS SQL Server sucks. On an Windows OS biased site you'll find the
> opposite.
>
> The common complaints to watch out for are the "Oracle" oriented people tend
> complain about SQL Server being a noddy database that's not a real grown up
> one and point to it's reader-blocks-writer issue or the fact it can't run on
> a proper box (read Unix) and it's too slow. On the other hand MS SQL people
> complain that Oracle is too costly and it doesn't have a user friendly GUI
> especially as it's too complicated, and its too slow. Both Oracle and MS
> have benchmarks to PROVE that their database is faster :-). Go figure that
> contradiction - I'm an engineer not a statistician or marketing guru :-)).
>
> Good luck in finding an unbiased document - they're as rare as honest
> politicians
> Andy

I agree with your basic point but one thing I find fascinating is any developer or DBA giving a rip about the cost.

When was the last time anyone here actually paid a dollar from their own pocket to license any RDBMS software?

And please don't tell me that your employer, be it a Boeing, an AT&T, a Siemens, a Phillips, or whatever is going to notice a few hundred thousand dollars one way or the other when they are flushing hundreds of millions or billions, down the rat hole of unproductive workers and executive perqs. And the difference between Oracle and other RDBMSs is not going to be anything close to a few hundred thousand dollars. And management really doesn't care.

One real cost to an enterprise is the cost of downtime. Take an application I worked on at Boeing about 8 years ago. We hosted about 10,000 simultaneous users. Assuming the average employee costing the company $1.00 per unproductive minute figure out how long it took to pay for the license difference and why they chose Oracle.

Daniel Morgan Received on Thu Jan 16 2003 - 11:48:56 CST

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