Re: what is the advantage of oracle over access

Hans Forbrich wrote:
>
> Gary Assa wrote:
> >
> > >My group and I are looking for information on the advantages of oracle over
> > >access. General observations, personal experience, or even reference on
> > >where to find more info would be greatly appreciated.
> > >
> > >
> > Number 1 reason: Oracle is a good program and access is a piece of
> > crap Microsoft product.
> > --
> > =========================================================
> > http://www.li.net/~gsa/index.html
> > This is my signature file, not part of this mail message.
>
> That's an opinion ... just as this is: Access was designed
> to get market share from other PC oriented databases.
>
> Advantages of Oracle:
>
> 1) Multi-platform
> 2) Industrial strength
> 3) Longevity (since early '80s)
> 4) Flexible (new features being promised all the time)
> 5) Handles large volumes
> 6) Relatively close to ANSI SQL (this will be debated, I'm sure)
> 7) Identical on all platforms (test on PC, migrate to mainframe)
> 8) Lots of 'knowledgable' programmers
> 9) Front-end tools are separate
> A) Very robust
>
> Disadvantages of Oracle:
>
> 1) Requires a DBA
> 2) Cost
> 3) Support (not IMHO, but frequently mentioned in newsgroup)
> 4) Front-end tools are separate
>
> Advantages of Access:
>
> 1) Microsoft's name
> 2) Tuned for MS operating systems
> 3) Useful non-SQL Extensions
> 4) Ground-up OLE support (latest versions)
> 5) No DBA required (unfortunately translated to often as no
> maintenance required)
> 6) Built in front-end tools
>
> Disadvantages of Access:
>
> 1) Microsoft's name
> 2) Tuned for MS operating systems
> 3) Useful non-SQL Extensions
> 4) PC oriented - relatively small scale
> 5) Part of a family of products rather than a scaling of a single
> product.
>
> Both products have their place. Personally I lean toward Oracle
> for all but the smallest DBs. However, I come from an environment
> where I appreciate real (local) support & operations staff to
> CMA in terms of keeping the OS and RDBMS healthy.
>
> If the DB is planned to grow past 50M or 100 tables or 10 users, I
> definitely go Oracle because of past experiences. Because of that
> I admit to no knowledge on Access to WIN95 or WinNT.
>
> /Hans

There are a number of interesting reports on the use of access. All the industry reports agree access should be used for single developer environments, where data can easily be recreated and where the application is not mission critical. Look at back-up and corruption repair on access, also no stored procedures and performance in a multi user environment. If you need a single user system try personel otacle 7 for win 95 it's great and you will be able to scale as you need. Received on Thu Oct 10 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST