Re: oracle vs. ms access

Terence Hill wrote:

> This sounds like a joke, but my company really thinks about a supply
> software that is based on a access db. Please give me comments against
> access in relation to oracle.
> 
> Thanks for help
> 
> Walter

Some questions you need to mull over with this one ..

• Describe your company
  • size (employees and annual revenue)
  • is there an IT group
  • is there a DBA
  • are there professional programmers on staff
• How many people expected to use the application
• How many people expected to use the application concurrently
• How many 'records' exxpected in a year.
• What custom reporting requirements are there?
• The 'supply software' - is it from a reputable software company
  • are you fighting politics?
  • is the developer a friend of management?
  • does the supplier have references over 1 year old?

An Oracle based solution _might_ be overkill in some situations. Remember that a fair number of small businesses are happily using Quicken and QuickBooks for their financials.

In my experience, some of the hidden costs related to Access applications appear 1-3 years down the road because:

• data dictionaries are 'grown' rather than designed
  • enhancements and next gen are difficult
• often very limited scalability
  • 1-2 users
  • a few thousand 'records'
• no administration required .... frequently no administration possible
• no archiving possible
• vendor lock-in ... an issue if the vendor is small (eg: 1-man shop)
• rarely any backup or recovery even considered, never mind implemented
• new and excitingly different reports are not possible or very $$$

And finally, two years from now, when the business grows, how will the Access program be migrated to an 'industrial' database. (I get/hear this kind of request about once a month - generally after 2 years of data as been lost due to lack of backup.)

/Hans Received on Wed Sep 22 2004 - 00:28:10 CDT