We need a database, but which one?
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 12:01:41 GMT
Message-ID: <CL0C2u.9xK_at_dnsserv.go.dlr.de>
Hi,
I'm currently working at a large government research establishment in
Southern Germany, and we have decided to install a database system on one
of our PC networks. The main question for use is "Which one?"
We have narrowed the choice down to two: Oracle and Foxpro. The reason
why we are considering Foxpro is because its cheap! In fact it was given
to us as an extra when we installed Windows on the network. The new
database will be initially limited to 20 users and we will therefore have
to buy a multiuser license. In the case of Foxpro we're talking about
DM 5000.- and for Oracle its about 7 time this (including s/w). On the face
of things it's obvious to choose Foxpro, but we already have databases
installed on two large VAX VMS clusters and on a single PC, and in all
three cases we choose Oracle. It would therefore be nice to stay with
Oracle and have a single inhouse DB standard. We have programmed (with
Pro*C) a number of utilities (some of which are quite complex) for the
single PC and we could port these to the PC network with little effort.
If we install Foxpro then we would have to rewrite sections of code using
the new DB library routines with Visual C++ v1.5 .
Recent discussion on this list has mentioned the minimum requirements
needed for running Forms 4 on a PC, and if I have understood this
correctly a 386/33 /w 4MB is needed to run a Forms application, and a
486/50 /w 64MB to develope them. These, as others have pointed out, are
extremely high, and if we have to upgrade 20 machines (all will be used
for development) then this really is the point at which Oracle is no
longer interesting for us.
I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who wishes to comment on our
decision, and especially interested in more reasons to justify why we
should pay out such large sums for Oracle.
Thanks,
Geoff
Received on Thu Feb 10 1994 - 13:01:41 CET