Alternatives to Oracle
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2013 01:34:31 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <pan.2013.01.07.01.34.51_at_gmail.com>
I don't think I will say anything particularly surprising if I say that Oracle prices are sky high. To make things even worse, the old lore that a commercial feature will be incorporated in the enterprise edition in the next version or two no longer holds true. Partitioning is available since Oracle 8i and is as expensive as ever. I don't expect it to become a part of the EE license before the version 18F. Also, the old principle that development databases are essentially kept for no longer applies. Oracle storm troopers are boldly doing audits and requesting every instance to be paid for.
Irked by the prices, many companies are considering alternatives to Oracle, primarily open source. Unfortunately, open source databases suck and lack necessary features to be useful. It would be almost impossible to connect 1000 users to MySQL or PostgreSQL database and run 100 simultaneous transactions. There are other problems, too. Partitioning is a joke. Relying on open source databases would be a serious gamble for any business larger than a burger joint.
So, the question is what are people here exploring? SQL Server prices have gone up significantly. DB2 prices have recently been significantly slashed and I was tasked with learning DB2. I thought that it will be harder. As a DBA, I am a person who would be hit the hardest. Java programmers using Groovy don't really care what is the underlying database. It is me who needs to learn how to stop/start it, troubleshoot it, back it up, recover it and monitor it and do all the nasty things that we DBAs usually do. So far, it's surprisingly easy.
-- Mladen Gogala The Oracle Whisperer http://mgogala.byethost5.comReceived on Mon Jan 07 2013 - 02:34:31 CET