Re: 10g vs. MS SQL Server

"Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message news:40a18227$0$20347$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au...
> Anna C. Dent wrote:
>
> > http://www.progstrat.com/research/gems/040401rdbmscmcs.pdf
>
> Clearly, their comparisons on the installation front didn't involve
> having to create a user account, set kernel parameters, create
> installation directory structure, integrate database and listener
> startup into the /etc/rc.d script hierarchy and other such wonders of
> the Linux world! No wonder the Oracle installation was 54% less complex
> than SQL Server's... they missed all the good bits out!

I assume that they tested both pieces of software on the same machine and that would be a windows box.

>
> Never mind that I would never assess a database on its ease of
installation.

And if installation were really a worry you'd be automating the install anyway

> Their 'create database' time savings over SQL Server appear largely to
> have arisen by virtue of them selecting the 'General Database' template
> in dbca and keeping all the defaults. Hardly a real-world test.

Oh I don't know. It's hardly an ideal test but real-world I think so.

> And I note their tuning tests were not of the 'this report takes 10
> minutes currently. Make it run in 5' type, but were simply of test of
> how easy it was to run the tuning wizard on each database.

! It is very difficult, but not entirely hopeless, to get the timing information you need out of sqlserver to do this effectively. I suspect that someone who knew what they were doing could perform this task in a shorter time on 7.3.4 than you can on MSSQL2000

I'm also quite glad that they conclude that a just released software product is better than a 4 year old one.

They don't make any mention at all of developers efficiency with the two products, giving 2 equally experienced programmers a web shop type spec and getting them to implement it, then comparing efficiency of implementation and efficiency of the resulting app would be a highly interesting experiment.

-- 
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
Audit Commission UK
http://www.niall.litchfield.dial.pipex.com/