Re: Microsoft MS SQL article for Oracle Professionals

Jared
On 10/18/05, Jared Still <jkstill_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> The following article appeared in the DBA Village newsletter.
>
> Anyone else see it?

I didn't see it, but its an old article (2001) , and one I'm surprised is still on technet.

There's no way to comment directly on the article there, so I'm
> taking a whack at it here.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/deploy/sqlorpro.mspx

It starts with
Definition of Database

In Oracle, a database refers to the entire Oracle RDBMS environment and includes these components:
 •

Oracle database processes and buffers (instance).

Not in my book. Not even in the Oracle 7 days (which is the comparison they chose - even in 2001 they compared old stuff). An instance does not and never has been equivalent to a database.

I took a look at one paragraph, the one under the heading 'Striping Data'.
>
> > Oracle-type segments are not needed for most Microsoft SQL Server
> installations.
>
> What, SQL Server doesn't use tables or indexes?
>
> > Instead, SQL Server can distribute, or stripe, data more efficiently
> with hardware-based RAID ...
>
> Still doesn't have much to do with a segment.

They are confusing segments with extents in Oracle I think. And they are still wrong for the reasons you outline.

>If RAID is not an option, filegroups are an attractive alternative and
> > provide some of the same benefits available with RAID. Additionally,
> > for very large databases that might span multiple physical RAID arrays,
> > filegroups may be an attractive way to further distribute your I/O
> > across RAID arrays in a controlled fashion.
>
> Sounds a bit like a tablespace.
> Which is what the article was attempting to SQL Server didn't need
> in the earlier comments about segments.
>

Its exactly like a tablespace. And look, you can use them to separate data from their associated indexes!

I'd have liked them to have commented on the use of clustered indexes which is so prevalent in SQLServer vs IOTs which are, well not used really.

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