Re: Pro's & Con's on Oracle & SQL Svr?

Oracle is more expensive, at least list price wise, than SQL Server. Though obviously one can negotiate pricing of anything if sufficiently large. When I said Solaris is more expensive ... I was referring to the cost of the hardware and software assuming the minimum Solaris server to be something like an Enterprise 450 with 4-6 CPUs.

I haven't worked with clustered Win2K but clustered or not it still has the liability of being the most easily hacked and the most likely target for a viral attack. From my experience (and it is 3 Fortune 500s only ... not all of them) major companies go to UNIX when they need scalability. I know the results of testing from internal labs at two Fortune 500s and while I don't know the specifics they do not allow SQL Server or Win2K to be used for line-of-business apps: Only Oracle and DB2 Universal Server.

I have found from my experience that marketing VPs have no credibility when discussing IS issues if you ask the right questions. I always present costs as "Total Cost of Ownership" rather than this piece of software vs. that piece of software or this server vs. that sever.

It is truly amazing sometimes to watch people quibble over a $20K difference in pricing while ten people costing the company $75/hour sit in a conference room for endless hours debating the issue.

Daniel A. Morgan

wayne wrote:

> > > You're obviously not in upper management.
> > I am a hired-gun ... a consultant for hire.
>
> Hey, we have something in common!
>
> > upper management. My point was not the money is not important. But rather
 that
> > saving money on software and hardware (buying SQL Server and NT) at the
 expense
> > of losing customers due to performance and down-time, or paying employees
 to
> > come in on weekends and reboot servers, or worse yet having your database
 hacked
> > and losing proprietary information is no savings at all. What counts is
 TOTAL
> > cost of ownership over the life of the applications life cycle.
>
> And good and valid arguments those are, but try convincing the marketing VP
> who just read a magazine article which "proves" something else is cheaper...
> Unfortunately those things do happen sometimes, so cost (or advertised low
> cost) sometimes does get in the way.
>
> I am on the same side as you, and I believe in the right situation,. Oracle
> is by far the cheapest solution.
>
> Also, the thing that gets brough up most often as something we should switch
> to is not SQL Server, but DB2 on the AS/400 surprisingly. The IBM people
> are really desperate to increase market share. I suppose they are as
> desperate as Oracle was when my biggets client switched to Oracle (they
> bought licenses at about 40% of advertised price!).
>
> > insignificant in a major development project. Of course SQL Server costs
 less
> > than Oracle. Of course NT/Win2000 costs less than Solaris. Of course
> Oracle on
>
> Did not know SQL server cost less, actually! I do not know about NT,
> though... Does Solaris charge by the user? I thought they did not. If
> they do not, there has to be a user count after which Solaris is actually
> cheaper.
>
> > Solaris will be up 7x24x365. Of course NT/Win2000 won't be.
>
> Really? How about clustered Win2K?
Received on Mon Apr 02 2001 - 01:44:50 CDT