Re: Oracle vs MS SQL Server support ?

I work for a large company and we have both Oracle 8 and SQL Server 7 so I will attempt to answer your questions.

If your current database is Oracle 8 and running in Unix you will find the transition to NT a challange. In order to know SQL Server 7 you must be familiar with NT. Supporting both is not very difficult but can be time consuming if the application is very OLTP and high user use. A good DBA could handle both environments but you must make sure that training is in your package. What is the application you will be supporting?

Oracle adminstration can be taxing if the database is in a growth state. Assuring the database is tuned and the disk is aligned correctly during growth can take up quite a bit of time. If your shop is mature, then many of these task should have been automated. The learning curve to SQL Server can take some time and the interface to the data dictionary, where the DBA lives, is very different so plan for your Oracle DBA to spend some time learning the environment and be able to accept some mistakes.

The environments are what you feel comfortable with. I prefer Unix because for me it is easier to figure out what is going on in the server than it is in the NT environment. It is easier for me to find out a user memory footprint in Unix than in NT and that becomes critical when you are trying to scale your machine. While SS7 is advertised as very scalable I have read many articles where there seems to be failures that forced companies to move to larger boxes and Oracle, so ask yourself about growth.

I am pro-Oracle but have conceded that learning SS7 is a necesscity in today's corporate environment.

You can contact me via email james.rice_at_na.manpower.com for further discussion.

"CKraack" <ckraack_at_aol.com> wrote in message news:20000330200152.14345.00000185_at_ng-md1.aol.com...
> My company's database is Oracle 8.
>
> A software package we are looking at requires Microsoft SQL Server 7.
>
> Does anyone have experience with both, and if so here are some questions:
>
> 1) (Assume I buy either a package that uses Oracle or SQLServer, either
 will
> have the same DB requirements, that is the package would have a dedicated
> set of tables sitting on either Oracle or SQL7. The DBA would also have
 to
> support other applications on the Oracle Server)
> If I had a single DBA supporting both database evironments, would it
 be
> too confusing ?
> Would he be overburdened trying to keep track vs having it all on
 Oracle
> ?
> I can see there being additional work in doing routine maintenance to
> two DB environments.
>
> 2) How does the administration of Oracle compare to SQL Server as far as
> difficulty & volume ?
>
> 3) (Now the silly question to ask in an Oracle newsgroup...)
> Which is the prefered environment to work ? For instance if we
 totally
> dropped Oracle support and decided to go with SQL7 or vice verse. What
 are
> the pros & cons of both.
>
> Thank you very much for any input you can provide.
>
> (please include your title & company in your reply)
>
> Christopher Kraack
> Seminole Electric Cooperative, Inc
>
Received on Thu Mar 30 2000 - 00:00:00 CST