Re: Slightly OT: Size of Oracle vs MS SQL database tables

> I'm working at a place where we're moving from an Oracle 10g environment to
> a mixed Oracle/MS SQL Server 2005 environment. (Main reason is cost; the
> Oracle software bid was five times the MS bid).

I'm not sure of your exact requirements, but Oracle 10g pricing is in line with SQL Server these days. If I was told the Oracle bid was 5x the MS bid, I'd get a raised eyebrow or two...maybe even three. ;) I'd question the bidding process.

The next thing I'd do is to factor in the transition costs. Converting an application from one RDBMS vendor to another is not always the easiest thing to do. And this most may be expensive. Might also need to factor in training costs for your DBAs who now have to learn the new RDBMS, or for SA's that may need to learn a new OS.

> We've moved one database over to MS SQL Server 2005 and have discovered that
> all of our data tables more than double in size under MS SQL Server 2005.
> The net effect is to more than double the amount of disk space required to
> implement the same database.

One place I'd look is at the storage related definitions. Did one use the default FILL FACTOR for the indexes in SQL Server? Would another FILL FACTOR be better? Oracle lets you choose the block size. SQL Server does not. Maybe that has some bearing on it. Where is the space getting allocated to? Has anyone done an analysis to see if the extra space is for tables? indexes? overhead structures (like the master and msdb databases compared to SYSTEM and SYSAUX tablespaces)? Do you have lots of procedural code? Keep in mind that SQL Server stores view definitions, triggers, stored procs, etc in the same database as the tables and indexes whereas Oracle stores them in the Data Dictionary in the SYSTEM tablespace.

Cheers,
Brian

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Brian Peasland
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