October 2, 2014 at 8:17 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Decline of SQL Server
October 2, 2014 at 11:17 pm
Hi Steve,
Great timing for this post, as it dovetails into an area that I have also been exploring: What is the future of data management? There is no doubt in my mind that it is not a question of SQL Server over PostGreSQL or relational platforms vs. NoSQL; I see a working, scalable and agile future being created by blending these technologies together.
As for the future of SQL Server... Microsoft's strong point, in my opinion, is an easy-to-use, familiar and attractive product with ready integration across the whole company. Microsoft provide convenient and seamless integration across database, to desktop, relational warehouses to Excel-based BI, etc., etc.. Particularly as we all look to embrace blackbox data science and BI tools, I believe that this is the defining feature that will help Microsoft maintain and even grow their market share. The key is in being able to bring technology directly to the user with a user-friendly layer of abstraction that insulates the non-technical user from the nuts and bolts. The challenge is going to be delivering this abstraction whilst maintaining performance and trust (let's face it, it can be hard to completely trust something you don't completely understand).
For my two cents, the future is bright for any vendor that can deliver scalable, accessible BI and Microsoft seem uniquely positioned to do this in my opinion. I will be interested in reading other's thoughts on this.
October 3, 2014 at 12:24 am
I have yet to see a decline in MS SQL Server use but I have seen people take up Open Source as a strategy for their development stack and evangelising with religious zeal.
My problem is that their bias is constantly applied when the individuals, that I have met, know better. I don't mind the rise and fall of any technology, however, I would prefer the decision made on a scientific or engineering basis.
So perhaps there is a sea of change but I am not sure that it is that big. I guess someone will tell me when it is obvious to all but myself 😉
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
October 3, 2014 at 1:29 am
I work for a mid-sized ISV with customers from national, tier-1 all the way down to very small companies.
Our application is an n-tier architecture, and it is extremely demanding of the data tier.
I have observed that smaller companies tend to go with SQL Server because it is more accessible and easier to manage. Larger companies tend to be IBM shops, and go with DB2. It's much more expensive, but they tend to have deep pockets and a culture that is accepting of IT spend.
While it's true that we cannot, on *OUR* application, which was designed for db2 and ported to Mssql, get the same performance from mssql as a similarly provisioned DB2 luw, Sql Server can definitely handle heavy OLTP workloads when properly tuned.
SO: it's good enough in terms of performance, and great in every other way, from cost to manageability to price of technicians.
Cost is a major factor, so Microsoft just needs to watch their greed, and make sure they don't price themselves out of the current situation.
October 3, 2014 at 1:32 am
Hello.
In the company I currently work for I am seeing SQL Server databases increase. We predominantly use Microsoft products for our solutions, which means SQL Server is the obvious choice for our database needs. At the moment we are in the middle of upgrading most of our SQL estate to 2012 from 2008 R2, adding Always On to provide some improvement to availability.
In this company, a big requirement is that the tools we use are reliable and proven. SQL Server fits the bill for us, and I expect we will continue to increase our use of it, certainly for the foreseeable future.
Andrew.
October 3, 2014 at 3:04 am
Similar to last reply, our environment is heavily based on MS products and we are planning on jumping from 2008R2 straight to 2014 and switching from current mirror solution to AlwaysOn AG. So I'm not seeing a decline on MS SQL Server for the moment and hope it continues that trend 😀
At same time some of current solutions are being migrated to NoSQL solutions, where it's clear we have an obvious gain on performance. Sample, logging stuff, RabbitMQ+ElasticSearch+Kibana has helped a lot both for relieving sql servers for doing that work and for better performance on logging and more detailed monitoring.
What I usually see is that developers think on NoSQL as a hammer and everything else is a nail. Many of them believe is a "SQL Server killer" and when they realize is not then the usual face is :blink:
October 3, 2014 at 3:32 am
yazalpizar_ (10/3/2014)
...What I usually see is that developers think on NoSQL as a hammer and everything else is a nail. Many of them believe is a "SQL Server killer" and when they realize is not then the usual face is :blink:
The same developers who think that using/doing [insert anything here] is the ONLY way to do ANYTHING and anybody who disagrees is a Neanderthal?
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
October 3, 2014 at 3:39 am
Gary Varga (10/3/2014)
yazalpizar_ (10/3/2014)
...What I usually see is that developers think on NoSQL as a hammer and everything else is a nail. Many of them believe is a "SQL Server killer" and when they realize is not then the usual face is :blink:The same developers who think that using/doing [insert anything here] is the ONLY way to do ANYTHING and anybody who disagrees is a Neanderthal?
Where is the LIKE button!! Totally agree with you! Precisely these days I've arguing, a lot, about db source control estrategy. And there is no way I can convice them that using shared repository+dev discipline to manually create scripts+some kind of twisted manually executed scripts is the wrong way to go.
October 3, 2014 at 4:13 am
It's certainly not in decline in my company. I started here as the (only) DBA back in 2009 and was initially responsible for just 3 production SQL 2000 servers with the first priority being to migrate everything to 2008. That's all we had apart from a few Express installs.
Fast forward to 2014 and I've now got 19 Production servers with one still being on 2000 due to legacy applications but the others on 2008 and R2 plus two on 2012.
Although all in house systems written by our development team are using SQL they are on just 6 of these servers because the main reason for this growth is the amount of third party business applications bought during this time period that have SQL as the backend database.
A big surprise is how many of these applications still say they require SQL2008 or R2 on Windows Server 2008 because they haven't yet got a version that's supported in SQL2012 on Windows Server 2012. I have a further two new servers to build this month for Content Management and Customer Engagement systems we've just bought - both requiring R2 rather than 2012.
October 3, 2014 at 5:31 am
Gary Varga (10/3/2014)
yazalpizar_ (10/3/2014)
...What I usually see is that developers think on NoSQL as a hammer and everything else is a nail. Many of them believe is a "SQL Server killer" and when they realize is not then the usual face is :blink:The same developers who think that using/doing [insert anything here] is the ONLY way to do ANYTHING and anybody who disagrees is a Neanderthal?
Amen to that.
Even read a post somewhere where a developer quipped "Any database with Joins is damaged".
?!?!?!!?
Frankly, I get tired of these debates on the web when I'm looking up how to implement a particular concept or pattern. In my head I'm always screaming: "Would you all just SHUT UP! I'm trying to code here!!"
____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.
October 3, 2014 at 5:38 am
A couple of things:
mysql is an Oracle product, no doubt positioned against customers who would use SQL Express or sqllite.
SQL Server has a sweet spot in the market, as does each of these DBMS. It is more of an art than a science to pick the right one.
Microsoft's pricing decisions are complicated. I do think they are leaving sales on the table, but are doing so for business rather than technical reasons.
What measures do you find meaningful to compare database platforms? Which ones are technical and which ones are business related?
October 3, 2014 at 5:57 am
This is ringing a bell with me as I am just starting to feel comfortable with SQLServer and as though my knowledge is now beyond 'beginners' after several years using it. I think that SQLServer is quite widely used within the health service here in the U.K. probably as they favour Microsoft's tried and familiar products in the main. I don't think that is going to change anytime soon.
Just widening out the conversation a little.... I live in a small town so jobs are a bit thinner on the ground but the university here is recruiting for a well payed Oracle, PHP developer. The money is good and I wonder if any of you would attempt go over to the other side for the right package? Do you see the your SQLServer specialist knowledge/skills and enjoyment of the product enough to keep you with SQLServer as long as there's a job for you?
Dave Morris :alien:
"Measure twice, saw once"
October 3, 2014 at 6:32 am
What I'm seeing is a lot of new projects built on MySQL or smaller companies using it, but then moving to SQL Server when either the project or the company reaches a certain level (Transaction load, even revenue). What I am not seeing is companies ditching SQL Server for MySQL. If SQL Server is plateauing, it may likely be because of prevalence. Mind you, this is just in my corner of the world.
Tom Hottle
--- Remember, if you don't document your work, Apollo 13 doesn't come home.
October 3, 2014 at 6:42 am
I don't see SQL Server going anywhere any time soon.
I worked in Oracle for about 15 years and it's a fine product. Our last purchase was also brutally expensive and enough to price itself out of reach for many mid-sized businesses. It has some great power, but SQL Server 2005 was a major step upward in rivaling Oracle's processing power.
On the other side of the coin is MySql, which is free. I think that the open source movement is a fine thing and is here to stay, but I don't know how comfortable I would be putting mission-critical data or PII in a free, open source database without a tremendous amount of investigation and security testing myself. Yes, the evangelists of MySql tout its awesomeness very loudly with religious zeal. Just because they're heard doesn't mean they're right.
I think the considerable investment Microsoft has made in SQL Server has paid off. The comment above about Microsoft keeping their greed in check is right on. They need to keep SQL Server priced at a level where small and mid-sized companies can afford it. After all, small and mid-sized companies are the ones who become tomorrow's large companies. As we all know, migration to a completely new database platform can be an enormous investment and a lot of companies are content with staying where they are. I'm certainly no sales and marketing guru, but it makes sense that Microsoft would want to get in on the ground floor with these companies so they can stay there.
October 3, 2014 at 6:46 am
I see more conservative businesses going to SQL Server. (Can't go wrong buying Microsoft...)The startups and some of the larger companies with talent are taking advantage of OSS; both the RDMS like PostgreSQL and the No-SQL, depending on the needs.
Don't count out MySQL. Oracle is funding developers to make it a more viable platform to undercut MS SQL at the low end...
The worst thing Microsoft has done is crank up the license costs and alienate developers by sending out mixed signals on their technology. It's easier for a young, small company to build products and solutions with OSS and not pay Redmonds weirgild of license cost on the OS, the DBMS and the development tools. (And Bizspark isn't a low cost solution unless you cheat on taxes owed on the licenses.)
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