January 12, 2017 at 8:32 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Thursday, January 12, 2017 8:16 AMZZartin - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 12:40 PMdranostaj (1/10/2017)
In recent years, justifying the cost vs the benefit of Oracle is becoming increasingly harder, which is why I believe MS SQL is taking off. If I was Oracle, I'd be concerned!Oracle is charging quite a lot more and not really offering many benefits over SQL Server and that's just at the DB engine level. Once you factor in that SQL Server is going to play much better in a windows stack environment and you're getting SSRS, SSIS and SSAS on top of that I'm sure it's pretty hard to justify Oracle unless you're locked into a product that only supports oracle.
I'd have said this was the case almost a decade ago. SQL Server has been less expensive, and added many features that made it easier to use. Certainly there were gpas, but I was surprised how many people stuck with Oracle.
Some stuck with Oracle due to technical snobbery.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
February 27, 2017 at 3:09 pm
Oracle has some strong points going for it, especially in terms of scalability for very very very large databases, and its two phase commit mechanism is still second to none when it comes to concurrency.
But the fact is that SQL Server has improved to be "good enough" for all but the largest deployments. 99% of all database domains in the world will run just fine on SQL Server. Oracle will always maintain a healthy presence in extremely large environments, especially in the military and government. And with its purchase of mySQL, Oracle will continue to bring in income from smaller markets.
Databases are tools and like any other tool, each has its place.
From a practical standpoint, having multiple vendors competing in the same space provides at least some market pressure to control licensing costs. Let's hope neither Oracle or SQL Server ever completely destroy the other.
Coming originally from the Oracle world (starting with 7.3) before being swept up in SQL Server's growth, my biggest complaint about SQL Server was always that I had to run it only on Windows. Now with Linux support, I have very few technical reasons to pick Oracle over SQL Server, at least on the size deployments I administer. Whatever the employer chooses, I will make it hum.
One thing I wish that Microsoft would do similar to Oracle regards Documentation. Oracle would always publish it's Big 4 Documentation sets (Admin, Backup and Recovery. Tuning, and Concepts) as large downloadable PDF's. With each new version, I would download, print, and bind each document. Then you could read a document logically from cover to cover. I have always found SQL Server Books online to be annoyingly frustrating with its hyperlinked web format. I am old school and never have found any better way to do documentation than treeware with a highlighter and pencil. Sitting in a comfy chair at 10 pm with a nice cup of tea and a cozy lamp was always a most pleasant way to learn. And the logical flow was perfect building chapter on chapter in a coherent fashion. Oracle Documentation (except for the first chapter probably written by the Marketing Department) was always (and still is) first rate.
In terms of noSQL, I think someone above spelled it out very well that it has suffered under the weight of its unsupported promises and hype. Nothing yet invented can organize and manipulate data as well as the relational model. The enormous impact and results of Codd's work all those decades ago never ceases to amaze me.
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