Re: SQL Server, Oracle or Informix

> > The *nix/J2EE/Oracle world, however, is still way behind in ease of
 use,
> >programmer and DBA productivity, and affordability. And though there are
> >many resources on the Internet for *nix/J2EE/Oracle programmers, there is
> >nothing as clean, comprehensive, and accessible as the MSDN program.
>
> That's a good one. Where have you been looking? Oh yeah, MSDN...

    Seeing as how I am working with Oracle now, can you point me where to look to find the best information resources about Oracle? I mean that in earnest, not to keep a flame war going.

    My reference to "clean, comprehensive, and accessible" refered to the fact that most of what you need to know about the MS tools can be easily installed on your machine, is well organized, and is searchable in a variety of useful ways. The Oracle documentation strikes me as quite comprehensive, but not easily searchable. Certainly, there are volumes of Oracle information to find on the Net, but it is scattered.

    A couple key questions I could really use answered is:

1. Is there an up-to-date reference on performance tuning that is of the quality of the increasingly dated 1996 O'Reilly book?
2. What is a highly regarded and affordable Oracle administration tool? Of the shareware ones I've tried out, TOAD and EZSQL seem pretty good, the latter being *much* less expensive.

> >1) If you cannot use Windows 2000 as your database server operating
 system,
> >choose Oracle.
>
> Oh! Oracle is an OS now? And Win2K is a database server? Of course,
> silly me: yet another "redefinition" of the world by M$.

    Don't be silly! You've misread that. If you cannot use Windows, you can't use SQL Server, because it only runs under Windows. Therefore, use Oracle. No one's claiming Oracle is an OS (though they think it's a file system now) or that W2K is a database server.

> >1) It is *hugely* less expensive than Oracle. Oracle is generally at
 least
> >$20K per CPU, and often closer to $30K per CPU, just for the basic
 database.
>
> Bummer. I must be rich then, because I have ORACLE. Hmm, doesn't
> glue, particularly since it's not that price.
>
> >They try to get major money out of you for most options on top of that.
 SQL
> >Server 7, on the other hand, has until recently been available for $8000
 per
> >server (not CPU; you can load as many CPUs as you want on the server),
 with
> >unlimited connections originating from the Web. I believe SQL Server
 2000's
> >pricing has moved towards a per-CPU pricing structure, but it's probably
> >still much less expensive than Oracle.
>
> *Probably*? Why not check instead of using old numbers?

    I'll eat some of my words on this score, because (as my caveat indicated) Microsoft has moved to a new pricing structure for SQL Server 2000. They've gotten rid of the per-server w/Internet Connector license strategy available under SQL Server 7 that enabled you to put it on a box with as many CPUs as you want for less than the cost of one CPU of Oracle. Oracle has also gone to a Universal Power Unit (UPU) pricing strategy.

    So, I'll no longer stand behind "*hugely*", but I will replace it with "much" (which was what my caveat quoted). SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition is basically $20,000 per CPU, regardless of CPU speed, for a perpetual license.

    Oracle 8i Enterprise Edition is $100 per UPU (1 UPU = 1 Intel MHz) for a perpetual license. So, for a 700MHz Intel processor, it's $70,000 per CPU. So, I apologize for underquoting the price. ;-)

    Actually, Oracle also has EE pricing for a 2 year license or a 4 year license, that would come to $24,500 and $42,000 per 700MHz CPU respectively. I can imagine there are situations where people might go for these shorter terms.

    Both servers also have standard edition pricing, with a similar, but less dramatic price advantage for SQL Server. For a comparison of those, see: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/productinfo/pricecomparison.htm. Note that that page errs in listing prices for Oracle's Standard Edition on machines with over 4 processor, because that is not allowed by Oracle's licensing (see http://www.oracle.com/ip/deploy/database/availability/index.html).

    Note that, until one or both vendors change their pricing strategies, SQL: Server's price advantage will improve over Oracle's as faster processors emerge.

    Wow! Until just a moment ago, I was under the impression that Oracle's Enterprise Edition pricing included the following options. It doesn't. Here's what these options add to the base Enterprise Edition price:

Parallel Server (30%)
Partitioning (30%)
Spatial (40%) (This was the potential killer feature that Daniel's GIS system might need)
Tuning Management Pack (10%)

With the exception of Spatial, functionality in each of these areas *is* included in SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition. Of course, I know that most Oracle people will say that SS2K's implementations are much less functional; I don't know enough about them right now to speak on that point.

    Certainly, many customers will be able to negotiate better pricing with both vendors. Oracle customers may very well get larger discounts percentage-wise than MS customers.

    However, I think I've established a reasonable basis to say that SS2K is "much" less expensive than Oracle 8i.

    Did you anticipate that if I checked the numbers my "probably" would be refuted? Do you have unpublished pricing information about Oracle that I don't know about? I will be consulted regarding some major Oracle purchases in the next few months, so I would gladly avail of any information that would bring its prices down.

> > Oracle is a DBA Consultant's dream database. It's got the market
 share
> >and conventional wisdom reputation on its side to get companies to keep
> >buying it, yet it requires DBA's with deep experience with it to make it
> >work well. Such DBA's often become independent consultants, because
 there's
> >big money to be made doing so.
>
> Funny. And the multiple M$ certifications (once for every release,
> don't forget!) are not designed to produce "expert" consultants in
> their products? And those will work for free?

    I'm talking about the database here, not the operating system. Most needs for MSCE's are for setting up networks anyways, so that's not particularly germane. My experience and observations on a number of consulting projects has been that projects using Oracle have generally hired outside Oracle consultants, whereas the developers on projects have generally been able to maintain their own SQL Server implementations.

    I will cheerfully admit that Microsoft's "roll out a new marketing name every year for the COM/COM+/DNA/DNA 2000/.NET platform" strategy is tiresome. However, all of the MS programmers I've known haven't had problems keeping up, and it is very easy to bring in junior programmers and get them immediately productive on projects.

> >3) SQL Server is very easy for each developer to install on his/her own
> >machine without hogging resources, generally increasing their
 productivity
> >if they work close to the database layer at all.
>
> Of course, all developers now run NT server and their own copy of SQL
> Server! What was that you mentioned about *cost*?

    No. They run Windows 2000 Professional (just like most Java developers do) and SQL Server 2000 Desktop Edition, with can be freely installed when you have a license copy of SQL Server 2000. Oracle evaluation editions are freely available, too. They just tend to use up more memory and are logistically more difficult for developers to work with.

> Hmm, funny that. I'd go exactly the other way around, having used
> both sides of the camp like you, except for a *lot* longer...

    Well, I certainly pity you if you had to spend time on the Microsoft platform prior to NT 4, Visual Studio 6, and SQL Server 7. I would not have eagerly broght the pre-cursors of any of those into my enterprise. Thankfully, I was happily working with NEXSTEP and OpenStep, generally under their version of Unix, for most of that time, hitting Sybase 4.x or Oracle 7.x.

    However, Windows 2000, SQL Server 2000, and the .NET frameworks are going to be formidable competitors in the enterprise going forward. And they will compete as they always have: with decent products having dramatically lower prices that generate viral marketshare gains for them. And, since history usually repeats itself, the giants in their arenas will wait too long to respond in kind. Remember any companies called Ashton-Tate, WordPerfect, Lotus, Novell, and Netscape? The last, at least, got themselves bought while they still commanded a decent price. (And look how well iPlanet has done...).

    Note, btw, that IBM has recognized this and has priced their DB2 database competitively with Microsoft's.

    Sorry. I didn't mean for this to be long.

    Nuno, if you've made it here without hating me, I would gladly hear your advice relative to the Oracle questions I posed above. Thanks.

Pat

P.S. I love your Web site. Received on Thu Feb 01 2001 - 23:57:25 CST