November 13, 2002 at 2:58 am
Had a major bun-fight in a pub last night with a bunch of guys who can only say the word Oracle.
I was the lone supporter of SQL Server.
They reckon : It is not scalable. It has poor performance characteristics. It has a low concurrency threshold. It is not used in real enterprise critical applications. It does not compare with the superior functionality of Oracle.
I reckoned : It did and does.
I thought they were all talking bolx.
I tried to get some facts from Microsoft about who are the big players utilising the database, number of users, database size etc... Unfortunately due to the UK Data Protection Act they were unable to furnish me with any amunition to stuff up the guys I met last night.
Are there any nice people out there that can share some success stories with me, or at least give me conclusive evidence as to why SQL Server is the "Best of Breed"?
I am particularly keen to ensure that the facts I present are substantiatable (if there's such a word) I would love to win the pints on offer with your help.
FYI: I tried to substantiate my belief in SQL Server with my own success stories. Unfortunately they said I did not count because I was biased. I had worked on Oracle for 7-8 years before seeing the light and taking the plunge with SQL Server the day Version 7.0 was released.
I know it's the best thing since sliced bread I just need other people to ratify my argument.
All comments welcomed.....Good and Bad!
November 13, 2002 at 4:23 am
Without going into this all again, take a look at the following threads.
Personally, I prefer and am biased toward SQL, the ease of installation, use and management are the big plus. Plus software cost, hardware cost (even thou Oracle can run on NT it is not at home on it), and support cost. Combined with numerous source information and well documented help and management tools included with the product. I however do also work with Oracle, Informix, Sybase and trying MySQL and find bits and pieces that make each a good product in some are the others are not. Just keep in mind that people do have a great tendency to get in a rut and become biased toward a particular product for various reasons.
I would pose that should you see these guys again, ask them have they used SQL and actually did anything with the product or are they blowing smoke out their @$$#$ without real knowledge of the product other than a quick I don't like it. Yes they do have to learn how to use it and accomplish a fair scale project before they can shoot their mouth off about something they have no true knowledge of. And include the fact you have 7 years Oracle experience so you can walk both sides of the fence equally. That is how I shoot most folks down. Of course they probably will say something smart like "I don't need to play with inferor toys." that is usually when I include "Small narrow minds." (still haven't figured out why they turn so red).
Last stuff wasn't very helpfull, but you will find most DB junkies don't open well to new concepts or alternatives once they pick a flavor. Mostly I think this is due to job security.
I however have rolled a few mission critical apps on SQL and have fewer issues with them than the Oracle server running our problem management stuff.
November 13, 2002 at 4:35 am
I believe EGG.com are using SQL Server.
I think you will generally find newer companies on SQL Server because older companies used Oracle because SQL Server wasn't around. The cost of moving is too high in terms of cost and risk. If you think SQL Server has only been in the big league for 3-4 years.
Simon Sabin
Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088
Simon Sabin
SQL Server MVP
http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons
November 13, 2002 at 8:38 am
There are better things to do in a pub then argue about the relative merits of Oracle and SQL Server.
Nigel Moore
======================
November 13, 2002 at 9:06 am
Ah, the never-ending debate...I worked on Sybase/UNIX platform for 5 years and now I work with SQL Server, and I can say without a doubt that MS SQL Server 2000 is 1)Faster; 2)More Realiable; 3)Easier to Administer; and 4) Cheaper.
There are unique merits to each RDBMS, but SQL Server has more of theses merits than many of the other products.
If you're looking for pure performance numbers, there is a good article on the MS website: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/compare/benchmarks.asp
-Dan
-Dan
November 13, 2002 at 9:20 am
Many thanks to all who replied. Especially Antares686, I followed all the links and found the information very useful - albeit stuff I already knew.
I have come to the conclusion that DBA's are not very good salesmen. Each contributing DBA / Developer all talked about the standard issues - Cost, Usability, Personal Preference, Why Change, Skill Sets etc.... Nobody seemed to want to explore all the other stuff in any depth which, for me, kills Oracle dead in the water.
I only started to work with SQL Server when Version 7.0 was released. Prior to that I had been mostly exposed to DB2, Oracle and Sybase. I hated Sybase for obvious reasons, and was unwilling to think about SQL Server 6.5 because of its Sybase origins. However, I started to read up about what this new MS product was going to provide. My immediate attention was drawn to three specific areas.
1. Enterprise Manager
I knew of a couple of freebie Oracle look-alikes, but nothing that compared to its graphical interface and view designer.
2. Data Transformation Services
This absolutely blew me away. The days I had spent developing interfaces in code, only to have it all done graphically. Of course you can always get dirty with Lookups and VBScript if needs be, but out of the box it was the "Cahone Del Peiro" (ie. "The Dogs Bolx")
3. Most Importantly....OLAP Server
Why peole have not simply mentioned this right from the outset amazes me. This is the absolute "icing on its bun".
I had previously been involved in a £10M Management Information initiative at a well known Insurance organisation where they had spent over £2M buying a proprietry product to provide an MDDB. With the release of SQL Server Version 7.0 it was being shipped with a "Free" OLAP Engine. I was gobsmaked. For £4.5K we now had the oportunity to do what had previously cost us £2M - No brain surgery required to see the importance. In the previous project we had used Oracle as our RDBMS and Gentia as our MDDB. We did an extensive ITT when choosing the MDDB because it was so critical to the project.
One of the products we were forced to review was Express. Which, then was part of IRI software. During the evaluation period Oracle bought Express and then started to market the product as their own. Without being too deflamatory, the Express product did not get past the preliminary selection round, despite Oracles' remonstrations. Also, the cost was going to be prohibitively expensive....Sorry just a bit of background.
So when SQL Server Version 7.0 came out all my prayers were answered. I had an RDBMS which fused seemlessly with an MDDB. The MDDB followed the then industry OLAP standards. It was nirvana.....And still is.
To top it all, Microsoft exposed the entire object model for not only the RDBMS but also the OLAP Server component. I was sorted. I could use C++ or VB to dynamically control what was going on inside both the RDBMS and MDDB. Build tables on the fly, build "Cubes" on the fly. Fire Jobs off, execute DTS which had been dynamically created in code, based on the data held in other parts of the system. It was a truely reactive solution that met all the requirements asked of it.
It was only made possible because of the features afforded to me by the SQL Server product.
An Oracle DBA of some 14 years used to sit next to me at this time. Initially, he was like most Oraclephiles - very sceptical. However, once he started to see some of the unique functionality available "out of the box" he too was flabbergasted. Did not manage to convert him fully, but he certainly started to listen. In fact, having left the company some 3-4 years ago my understanding is that he now uses both products - happily. All new systems are immediately considered for deployment on the SQL Server platform when an NT solution is viable....Which is almost always.
I better stop here otherwise I might be considered a SQL Serverphile. I'm not really, I'm just eager to deploy "Best of Breed" solutions within my clients and SQL Server is that choice at the moment. If MySQL ever get their act together and stop it being so geeky I could probably be persuaded to have a go at that too. But hell might need to have come down a few degrees first.
Again, thanks for the contributions.
November 13, 2002 at 9:34 am
Sorry I got in on this late, but I did contract programming for MCI (before their merger/byout whatever and all the layoffs). We were using SQL Server for a huge web app that all the field sales persons were using. If that isn't a good corporate example to use then I don't know what is 😉
I, myself am new to SQL as a support role and I am learning new things about all the time. I tried Oracle and found it extremely confusing as far as learning the ropes. SQL server on the other hand is so much easier to implement and learn.
November 18, 2002 at 7:29 pm
Don't forget that many high quality & top people from Oracle moved to MS and join up to build SQL Server (you'll see the next version will be a surprise for them who always mocking it)
BTW, This is a natural way for MS in doing their business. Don't you know that .NET who architected by a Delphi guy and their Java friends will finally beat Delphi and Java itself (hard competitors for MS VB & VC in the past). Let's see if this would also happen for Oracle...
Just a little thought 🙂
Hendry
November 25, 2002 at 12:19 am
I do a lot of data mart / warehouse development for one of the top 3 banks in the US and they have 100's of SQL Server installations and some of them are definitely considered "mission - critical", but the majority are reporting or deparmental in nature. Not saying that these aren't important applications, or that they aren't large (one of mine is 500 gb), or that they don't have a lot of users (I created an e-commerce db that was hosting 500 concurrent shopping cart sessions on a fairly mediocre server). It's just that you're not going to see a SQL Server normally handling ATM transactions, or Credit Card transactions, or anything of that nature in any mature business. Although, you may see it in a newer dot com or more progressive style business.
Why? Because they already have billions of dollars invested in hardware, people, and processes that work. Whether they're the fastest, easiest, cheapest, etc...doesn't matter. It's already there. And once you got a guy who's in charge of a 1,000 person mainframe IT department, you're not going to easily change to something like SQL Server. No matter what!
All of that being said, I know that the company currently has a 9 Terabyte Oracle db on a cluster of Sun 10K machines that cannot go a week without crashing. Now I don't know what all the problems are, but I do know that both Sun and Oracle have multiple people on site 24X7 and they STILL can't keep it up and running. And that's not even counting the normal Sat & Sun maintenance window.
I used to tell people that SQL Server was a good product, and yes it can't scale, yes it's limited in this and that and something else. But almost all of those limitations were and still are, related to Windows as the only OS. Not the db itself. Microsoft is obviously making great strides in this department, but once again. You don't sell million dollar windows boxes every day. And all of those test results you see touted on the MS site are done on boxes of that nature. So in my opinion, it's going to take more than just a few years before we see SQL/Windows moving out the big iron in a lot of these mature IT shops.
My $.02
David
November 25, 2002 at 7:26 am
I am sorry I got in on this thread a little late in the game. I encountered a similar situation recently on the job. As the Sr. DBA, I had the responsibility of making our Network Architect see the light regarding SQL Server. I found the case studies at:
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/casestudies/alphalisting.asp
very useful. I wish you luck. The SQL Server / Oracle debate will probably continue, but a least these may help
November 25, 2002 at 11:45 am
And then there's the low end of the market.
If MS is starting to take on the big boys in the RDBMS world, I think it's safe to say they already have the lower end. Access is the big small end database solution in the market today but there's also MSDE or SQL Server 2000 Desktop Edition which is a bit of a sleeper. Developers like myself are using this "free" database to give clients the database functionality they want on their desktops. And yet this is SQL Server with only a few limitations. What happens when those companies using MSDE-based programs want to scale up? They can stay with essentially the same platform and buy SQL Server...
So it's more than just great software... it's also, as recently mentioned, tremendous business acumen. Does Oracle offer anything similar? When the only thing Oracle has left are legacy systems then they've lost the battle even if their database is superior... which it ain't.
November 27, 2002 at 10:27 am
I can't speak for personal experience with scalability as the largest app I've worked with only had about 25GB of data and a couple hundred users.
As for mission critical though, I work as a DBA for a health system. One of the applications I work with is produced by a company called McKesson which serves a great variety of health facilities from hospitals to physician practices. In particular I manage the database end of an application called Claims Administrator that uses SQL Server. CA is a program that our billers use to send claims to insurance companies, Medicaid and Medicare. What this means is that this is how we get our money; Something on the order of ten to fifteen million dollars a week. If that ain't mission critical then I apparently don't understand the term.
"I met Larry Niven at ConClave 27...AND I fixed his computer. How cool is that?"
(Memoirs of a geek)
November 27, 2002 at 10:59 am
I can back up SQL Server on the mission critical measure. We run our factory floor production system on SQL 7.0 on Marathon Endurance Server. We process up to 100,000 credit/debit transactions a day as we follow our stock from intake through production and out of despatch. We also report realtime from the same database to enable the guys on the floor know what is where, to produce despatch documents, and advanced shipping notification, etc. We cannot afford to have the system go down as when it goes down production stops and we could miss an order for one of the UK's leading supermarkets and we don't want that (it hasn't happened yet).
Nigel Moore
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