Re: comparing Oracle and mysql

On 2001-01-15 18:44, Pino Gargiulo <jk3380_at_naida.org> wrote:
>Sorry, you are wrong! I wasn't trolling at all, mine is a real problem!
>
>Since I have absolutely no experience with MySQL I've done some surfing
>trying to find the most relevant missing features in MySQL. Here is what
>I've found and consider important
>
>- foreign keys

true.

>- sub selects

true.

>- bind variables

true. But irrelevant, since MySQL doesn't have a built-in procedural programming language, so there are no variables you could bind. For external programming languages, this can be implemented in the database driver and is transparent to the programmer.

There may be some speed advantage from preparing frequently used statements, though.

>- atomic transactions

MySQL has them now.

>- online backup

MySQL has that, too.

>- native java support (not relevant in my case, sorry Sybrand Bakker)

You haven't listed anything which would require support for a programming language in the database (e.g., triggers), so I don't see why Java should be in it.

I'd add two more restrictions of MySQL:

• no views
• no triggers

>More difficult to evaluate is speed. Apparently MySQL's main feature
>is speed but is seems to degrade quite quickly as load increases (info found
>on Postgres mailing list).

It almost certainly doesn't scale that well to huge loads.

>This make me wonder about the headline on MySQL
>website stating that "NASA switches from Oracle to MySQL" (small budget
>maybe? 8-))

If they know what they are doing, they have run benchmarks for their workload and have found that MySQL is better at that specific work load. Why should they care if Oracle is better at other workloads?

Choose the right tool for the job. For some jobs, MySQL is somewhat better than Oracle, for some it is simply unuseable.

>Last consideration is that security is lacking and many vulnerability
>spots have been found in MySQL code.

I have certainly seen Oracle mentioned more often on bugtraq than MySQL (don't mix up msql and mysql). From a security perspective I would prefer MySQL to Oracle, from the simple reason that I know what it does and how I can make it secure. With Oracle I would always wonder what doors I have left open that I don't even know about (the oracle 8.1.7 tar file is now 499 MB).

        hp

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__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |	-- Scott McNealy, Dec. 2000