Re: ORACLE vs Sybase

In comp.databases.sybase Darren Tan B K <tanboonk_at_pacific.net.sg> wrote:
: ORACLE or Sybase?

Which is better FrameMaker or Word? Well...religious wars asside, it depends on what you want to do with it. Modern relational (or object-relational, as the case may be) databases are extremely complex and expensive beasts with oodles of features and knobs to turn. Many are geared differently for different uses.

As I tell everyone that asks this question: Come up with the criteria that you need your database to meet. Get both databases. Read the manuals. Then try them out. Take your time...for a large banking environment, you are talking about a very serious investment in software, hardware, support, and training (you would be very suprised at how much a good DBA costs these days). It does not pay to choose a database rashly (well, unless you are choosing betwen, say, Foxpro and Access).

: I would like to know which database is best suited (in terms of
: performance, stability, upgrades, ease of use) for a banking environment
: where data from an IBM Mainframe is imported into the database.

Well, as a plug for Sybase (and to add something to your list of things to research)...Sybase is known for their connectivity and middleware, they can make virtually anything talk to anything else. They offer products that allow you to issue queries to virtual tables in your Sybase ASE server which transparently are converted and issued to DB2 (ASE >= 11.5 w/DirectConnect for DB2). You can even join between Sybase and DB2 tables. They have real-time data replication to and from DB2 (Replication Server and Replication Agent for DB2). And they sell various data migration and transformation tools (PowerStage).

Once again...research, research, research. A mix and match of Sybase and Oracle products may do you...who knows?

: The database will be installed into a Sun Solaris unix system.

Then MS SQL Server is out :) Both Oracle and Sybase run on Solaris quite well.

: Which has a bigger market share in the Banking Industry?

Which has a bigger market share...FrameMaker or Word? Which is better? Depends on what you want to do. Choosing any product based upon market share is one of the silliest decisions you can make. Remember, Microsoft has market share in a lot of products that just don't deserve it (although, admittedly, some do).

-scott

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Scott C. Gray                 gray_at_voicenet.com     "my keybard is brken"
Sybase Professional Services  scott.gray_at_sybase.com
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