Re: SQL SERVER vs ORACLE

Andy wrote:

> Daniel
>
> <snip>
>
> > I agree with your basic point but one thing I find fascinating is any
> developer
> > or DBA giving a rip about the cost.
> >
>
> Unless that DBA has to write a justification for why a customer should pay
> for Oracle rather than use the free (not quite) MySQL for running their ATM
> system :-)
>
> > 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.
> >
>
> You'd be suprised at how many big organistations I've been involved with
> want mission critical systems to run on zero cost (up front at least)
> installations. MySQL on Linux anyone ? The bean counters really need to
> understand costs better (as you next point shows). Getting some of them to
> believe the figures can be like getting blood from a stone (and a very hard
> stone at that).
>
> > 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
> >

Of course they want it. They also want free airplane tickets if you ask them.

But lets have some honesty here. Your manager comes to you and says we need four reports and you can either say:
1. Well these are easy they will take a day or two 2. Well we'll need to modify two stored procedures and do some aggregations these will take two weeks.

Management doesn't know and, while it may grumble, in the end says "Ok."

So when they need an RDBMS for $19.99 you resond with questions such as: 1. How important is it that this thing be stable and have minimal downtime? 2. How important is the information contained in it and the need for security against hackers and corruption?
3. How important is performance, availablity, and scalability? 4. How important is it that we be able to integrate this data with our other systems such as finance?

Then make a recommendation.

If management's only concern was cost they'd all be driving Yugos: And they're not!

Daniel Morgan Received on Fri Jan 17 2003 - 10:23:32 CST