Hi,
Me - posting in an Oracle newsgroup...a miracle.. here goes:
- Single platform
Yes, SQL Server runs on only one platform. Question: Does it bother your
shop? Are you an MS shop through and through anyway?
Unless you feel the need to change the platform or you are afraid to hit
a scalability barrier this is no reason to switch in its own right.
- Locking/Concurrency
True, Oracle has a different locking and isolation level concept. They
have had it since a long time. However no other previously existing or
new vendor has adapted to this. The magic question is: Why? Obviously if
it would be better, the competition would adapt to it. Oracle needs some
interesting beast named rollback segment to support this feature. These
have their own set of problems. Also there are scenarios where one can
argue whether Oracle simply violates ACID.
- Performance and tuning
Oracle 9i will provide a lot of self tuning enhancements. They wouldn't
support this if they believed their buttons are a pure plus and if it
wasn't for competition from SQL Server. Whether one wants many buttons
or little that take care of themselves is as interesting a question as
whether you prefer to drive a car with stick shift or automatic
transmission. Certainly Oracle requires more skills to hit those many
buttons right and those skills need to be developed and paid....
W.r.t. range-partitioning SQL Server 2000 supports insert through
federated union all views which they are showing off in their TPCC
benchmark. Not my favorite concept but it solves the same problem and
SQL Server surely won't stop there.
- No object support.
Oracle 8i doesn't have a lot of that either (no inheritance, no real
typed views, etc..). Oracle 9i once it turns from vaporware into
software: different story. If you need it, you need it. If you don't:
who cares?
W.r.t. independent sequences my experience is: Shops whom we migrate
from MS/Sybase really need identity columns and they don't like
sequences. Shops who come from Oracle are happy only with sequences. If
you write an application from scratch both do the same job and both get
it done. If you have an existing application it's not trivial to switch
from one to the other either way.
- Programming
Oracle is at least equally guilty of extending the SQL standard as SQL
Server (and btw. there is SQL99 now). Neither CONNECT BY, nor nested
tables or sequences are in the standard.
Summary
SQL Server 2000 is a mature database. MS has made big strides since V6.5
and those who think SQL Server 2000 is anything like SQL Server 6.5 set
themselves up for being run over by Microsoft. Oracle being a "more"
mature database will cost you a lot more in service and skills for
features you might never use.
Bottom line:
Unless you are unhappy with where you are, stick with what you have. If
you are unhappy and you end up
talking to DB vendors or consultants: Make sure to compare the latest
existing products with the latest existing products, or at least
vaporware with vaporware.
Cheers
Serge
Disclaimer: I'm a DB2 engine developer. Obviously nothing I wrote
necessarily expresses the opinion of my employer.
--
Visit the DB2 UDB and DB2 Connect Online Support site at:
http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2/udb/winos2unix/support
Received on Thu Dec 21 2000 - 16:38:27 CST
