Re: ms-sql vs oracle on NT or UNIX?

Of course, the drawback of asking opinions on a newsgroup like this is that you will, in fact, get opinions. Here is mine.

I have worked with MS Sql Server off and on over the past couple of years. With Oracle for much longer. The main drawback of the MS product is that it only runs on NT, so the UNIX comparison question is not quite relevant. You can run Oracle on NT, of course, so that comparison is valid.

As operating systems go, I hold the opinion that NT is not nearly as
reliable as UNIX.  UNIX, especially DEC Unix (osf) running on Alpha is
quite stable. Of course, the mainframe people will scoff, but all things

Oracle on NT will not scale as well as it will on UNIX. The MTS multi-threaded server option does not work on NT. Oracle on NT eats up more memory per user than it does on UNIX. Of course, NT is typically running on pc-type hardware and you will often encounter some hardware-related performance restrictions.

MS Sql Server is a fine product, however. Well designed, pretty easy to support. The have a good administrative console and you don't need a heavyweight DBA to use it. Of course, you cannot get around the need for strong skills, especially at the design stage of an application, but you don't need as much constant support with the MS product as you do with Oracle.

On the other hand, Sql Server doesn't really scale very well. I had a couple of instances running on SMP processors and we had 100+ active connections. Dog days! The problems stem from the architecture that is inherent in the product. They got it from Sybase, as you will recall. Their means of handling transactions and logging are quite different from Oracle. In the case of Sybase/Microsoft, readers do indeed block writers. With Oracle, this cannot happen. A long running query in SQL Server can just kill interactive users. For small departmental applications, however, it (MS Sql Server) is a great product. Easy to install and maintain. Runs fine.

This is just a quick observation, and I hope it is helpful.

Roger Snowden

Fredrik Larsson <no_spam_mail2fred_at_hotmail.com> wrote in article <01bd3722$e188da20$28282828_at_maestro>...
> NT in general is crap. I hate every day that I work with it. As a client
> there is no alternative but NT as a server no way! Unix or Novell is the
> better choices.
>
> Therefore Oracle... =)
>
> > > I just have a performance question. How does the performance of
 ms-SQL
> > > compare to Oracle on NT and what about on UNIX? Which system would
 you
> > > recommend and why? I just want to hear pros and cons of oracle vs.
> ms-SQL.
>
>
Received on Thu Feb 12 1998 - 00:00:00 CET