Re: Oracle comparison

"Generic Poster" <nospam_at_nospam.com> wrote in message news:3D0EBB45.917C9100_at_nospam.com...
> "Howard J. Rogers" wrote:
> >
> > "Generic Poster" <nospam_at_nospam.com> wrote in message
> > news:3D0E5499.67AFFB6_at_nospam.com...
> > > Hello, at the risk of flamebait, I would like to ask you to comment on
> > > how or why you think Oracle compares favorably with other db products,
> > > both commercial and free. We do web development, and were recently
> > > contacted by a client who wants us to design a db for him on the web,
> > > which would be like a data warehouse for, say, up to 100 little
> > > webstores. We do not know a tremendous amount about the db field,
> > > though we can make them just fine. We recommended at first MySQL,
then
> > > decided on PostgreSQL.
> >
> > Your recommendations confirm what you wrote in the previous sentence.
<g>
>
> Well, FWIW, we know quite a few folks who are running MySQL as a small
> database, and they were quite happy with it. Plus, it is getting very
> popular as a web database......it's use is really exploding. I think if
> it really sucked, so many people would not be using it so
> enthusiastically

Lots of people use windows for mission critical apps. It must be really good. In particular mySQL is (IIRC) not ACID compliant. That would rule it out for me.

> But, we thought, there are these commercial db's.......I wonder what the
> advantage would be of using them. We could not come up with much but
> that was why I came in here. I figured they must have some strong
> points....

> See above....actually, MySQL and PosgreSQL are becoming very popular
> recommendations with web development consultants.....

Are they popular with database consultants?

> >
> > Is it that they were free?
>
> This was very important......
>
> Was cost the prime factor here?
>
> Yes, also we liked the portability (we were told that code in MySQL
> ported well to PostgreSQL), the integration with PHP Perl, Linux and
> Apache, the speed, their rapid, ongoing, open-source development.....

As a rule of thumb (cos I'm conservative) I am very suspicious of rapid development, I'm also *somewhat* suspicious of open source, In general you get what you pay for. In the case of Open Source that points at hidden costs (like support expertise etc).
> >
> > Is it that you or your client won't be running Windows servers?
>
> He is not running anything. This is all for the host. We are
> recommending Linux (or Unix) on the server and Apache as the webserver.
> The project would be tied together with PHP and Perl scripting. We
> recommended against a Windows server (basically a political matter on my
> part but I could not see any advantage anyway). We recommended against
> the Access, NT, IIS, ASP, VBScript. He had wanted to go in this
> direction.

Why did you not recommend the MS route. It really sounds like you recommend against it because you have a bias against microsoft. I'd rather people recommended for good sound technical reasons.

> Ahh, ok. Thanks.
>
> But you should really
> > consider things like concurrency, scalability, reliability, platform/OS
> > independence, multi-versioning, read-consistency, performance and so on.
>
> Yes but you are speaking another language. Can you point me to a
> website where I can make sense of this? Not sure you want to explain it
> all.....

technet.oracle.com (free registration required) and then browse the documentation starting with the Oracle Concepts guide.

--
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
Audit Commission UK
*****************************************
Please include version and platform
and SQL where applicable
It makes life easier and increases the
likelihood of a good answer

******************************************