I am the systems administrator for a University library. I am looking into
moving the library system to a real DBMS. Does anyone know of an existing
library based Oracle solution?
Current Problem: (Summary: Too Slow and Unreliable)
- A query on the existing system takes 1 hour for every 400,000 records.
(4/233Mhz)
- The existing DBMS(Proprietary) has problems with corruption.
- The existing DBMS will lock up when more than one person accesses a
particular record. The database isn't really relational so each record has
400-500 fields. Making changes using some of the system tools means the
entire database is locked.
- Some information is not stored, simply because the DBMS cannot cope with
the data. (Query Speeds)
I would like to implement a new DBMS on an NT Server. Yes, an NT server,
sorry, sorry, sorry.
I don't know whether to go with SQL Server or Oracle. Any opinions welcome
:)
I would like the following results in this order:
- Easy Development. I am not an idiot, just that I am one person team and
I need something that is quick and easy to work with.
- Reliability. I don't want corrupted data. I want the users to be able
to use the database without it always locking up or crashing. Daily lockups
are currently common.
- Performance. I want to be able to do queries on the fly that are
currently run as reports. Some libraries using this system are having
problems doing backups because the reports take so long to run, I don't want
to run into those problems.
- Web Access / Remote Access. I need to be able to do queries on the web,
most will be simple, but some need to be secured. In the future the library
will be in multiple locations, I need to be able to give regional access to
the databases.
- Costs. I need something that is cost effective, we are on a tight
budget. Currently we spend 30,000 (Canadian) for yearly licensing related
to the current solution. The new database needs to be less than that. One
time expenditures can be flexible up to 100,000 Canadian.
We have up to 30 concurrent users, with a growth of about 10% per year.
Thanks!
Trevor.
Received on Tue Mar 09 1999 - 18:53:15 CST
