Im often asked the question – whats best SQL or Oracle ?

The Oracle guys will tell you that SQL Server does not have as many  capabilities and features which Oracle has (or certainly 2 years ago they would have !) - and vice versa – SQL guys will claim their beast is the mightier etc. They may both be right in their own arugments.

But my reply to the question of which is best usually includes asking them the following:-

a. Do you need / will you use all the featues that the RDBMS offers?

b.More importantly in the current financial climate, how much extra will these features cost the organisation ? 

c.If we do need the features, how do you convince management they’ll get a return on their investment ?

d.What is the running cost of your RDBMS? Everything – from hardware, software, actual manpower, any DR/contingency planning costs etc.

e.Is it easy to get technical people to manage my database environment? e.g. I recently read a blog post claiming SQL Server experts were dwindling in numbers ?? Does your organisation have existing skillsets, or will they need to re-train/recruit ?

Its a debate which has raged for many a year and will probably continue to do so…………… but once they can answer the questions above then they should naturally be led to a decision.