October 3, 2014 at 6:48 am
Decline might not be the term that I would use. SQL Server is a great fit for companies looking for a particular solution at a particular price point. Economics tends to bring other database technology into play. Maintenance costs over the life of the solution brings other database technology into play. Ease and speed of deployment brings other database technology into play.
It would be a great idea to familiarize oneself with an alternative data technology other than Oracle or Sql Server. Mysql used to be a great low cost, easy to deploy and maintain alternative. PostgreSQL has fit that bill for the last three years and will continue to grow in popularity. Don't consider yourself a practitioner of one vendor's product over another's. Think of yourself as a generalist who is capable of specializing in multiple vendor specific technologies.
Distributed computing is a concept that most database vendors have not considered in the past. The DBA role is critical because something had to be done to compensate for the difficulties of managing the solution. The DBA's role will shift and the reliance on DBA's will decline for most companies. There should be some discussion centering on the topics of economically viable alternatives to traditional technologies.
October 3, 2014 at 6:53 am
Ignoring a few anti-developer sentiments that seem to forget DBAs can be just as bad...
I work as a programmer and part-time DBA for a small to medium size company, and we are moving from SQL Server to MySQL (against my preference/recommendation). Microsoft's new licensing schema has put Enterprise SQL Server outside our price range. We have already decommed one instance, and are being strongly pressured to eliminate the remaining two.
October 3, 2014 at 6:56 am
Don't consider yourself a practitioner of one vendor's product over another's. Think of yourself as a generalist who is capable of specializing in multiple vendor specific technologies.
Jack-of-all-Trades, Master-of-None.
How many people have done serious development or admin of more than one or two different RDMSes at the same time? I deal with FIVE on a weekly basis, more than that annually. And it's tough to juggle best practices, SQL differences, tuning, coding and security issues for all of them.
October 3, 2014 at 6:59 am
paulsmith (10/3/2014)
..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.
This is a big issue for us. We're not even running 2012 yet (other than experimenting) because of legacy requirements. Often we will run a version of a major application for 3 or 4 years, and when that app was installed it often was written for the previous version of sql, so we have 2 degrees of separation. It's possible to have even more degrees under some circumstances.
Case in point: We are updating a complex business analysis application. Last update we did was about 4-5 years ago (it's a major undertaking to port the data and retrain widely separated users). The version we put in then only supported SQL2005, so that's what we're still running until the new version becomes production in a month or two.
With a rats nest of lowest denominator applications, we are forced to remain several years back .
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
October 3, 2014 at 6:59 am
Microsoft's current lack of a pay as you go strategy is caused this situation. No one wants to incur a massive capital expense for features that they might use when all they really want to do is use certain things more. MySql ceased to be a viable alternative the minute Oracle purchased the technology. Microsoft will execute on its cloud strategy but it will be too late for a several companies.
October 3, 2014 at 7:08 am
MySql ceased to be a viable alternative the minute Oracle purchased the technology.
Actually it's becoming a better technology because Oracle can afford to pay developers to make real improvements and clean up the legacy messes. It gives them a product to undercut Microsoft on the low end that customers don't have to pay for. Freaking genius if they don't screw it up.
PostgreSQL is where the more conservative OSS developers are. Between it and MySQL, Microsoft still doesn't have a good response on the license costs...
October 3, 2014 at 7:15 am
Gary Varga (10/3/2014)
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 😉
I saw that same zeal with SQL Server in the early 1990's. I was developing on the IBM S/38 and was at a seminar on various database products. We always seem to get evangelists very early in a product or a methodolgy's lieftime. That's good, though, as it serves to confront those of us comfortable with one way of doing something. I still see a lot of religious proclamations from practitioners of agile.
Tom
October 3, 2014 at 7:19 am
See the following from a one year old slide deck.
Advantages of PostgreSQL container.
Provides an identical snapshot of most recent dev database(s) for all developers
Developers can avoid dealing with setup and maintenance of development (or staging) databases
Allows for quick testing: both app and database changes for some types of tests
Sql Server is a great technology. The current stack from Microsoft makes replicating the previously mentioned solution with SQL Server cost prohibitive. I would say that there is a decline in the demand for non Linux based solutions. Get Sql Server running on Linux and figure out a way to charge for "plugins or packages."
October 3, 2014 at 7:35 am
Xavon (10/3/2014)
Ignoring a few anti-developer sentiments that seem to forget DBAs can be just as bad...
This might be aimed at comments that I made (don't worry Xavon, I am not taking this personally as this is a serious issue - the ol' DBS vs Developer war). For the record I am a developer. NOT a DBA. The comments above all target specific attitudes some (only some!!!) developers have.
We must remember that we can attack an attitude that is generalised as coming from a subset of a namable group of people without others inferring that we are attacking that group as a whole. An example of this in the other direction is I hate it when I meet DBAs who feel that the database is the ONLY thing of value and applications are worthless (the rest of us, from either camp, know that we need both databases and applications to deliver business needs).
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
October 3, 2014 at 7:37 am
chrisn-585491 (10/3/2014)
Freaking genius if they don't screw it up.
One word: Java
Horrendous mess.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
October 3, 2014 at 7:41 am
jay-h (10/3/2014)
chrisn-585491 (10/3/2014)Freaking genius if they don't screw it up.
One word: Java
Horrendous mess.
You are so right. I thought that Sun created a great technology then lost the plot when they thought that turning it into a war was a good idea (MS as guilty, of course, but always seem to know to battle with media, marketing and others technology as opposed to their own).
Oracle made a lot of Java people very nervous.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
October 3, 2014 at 8:06 am
One word: Java
Horrendous mess.
I'm not fond of Java as a language. Nor browser applets. And it still needs some serious work on fixing security issues.
But you know what? They delivered on the cross platform problem. Nothing else installs on OS X, Windows and Linux with as few issues. JetBrains can create some decent IDEs that work well on all platforms. Pentaho can work better than SSIS in many cases. And Clojure may bring Lisp to the masses.
October 3, 2014 at 8:24 am
I see SQL Server use increasing in my area of the country.
Much of the increase seems to be due to the "can't go wrong if using Microsoft" and the increasing numbers of tech leaders (in my area) who have zero knowledge in anything outside of the Microsoft software stack. MS has done well buying off all those college IT programs.
October 3, 2014 at 8:42 am
podmate (10/3/2014)
...MS has done well buying off all those college IT programs.
True. Compounded by Oracle being inflexible and arrogant is what I heard. Too easy to believe, that one.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
October 3, 2014 at 8:43 am
chrisn-585491 (10/3/2014)
One word: Java
Horrendous mess.
But you know what? They delivered on the cross platform problem. Nothing else installs on OS X, Windows and Linux with as few issues. JetBrains can create some decent IDEs that work well on all platforms. Pentaho can work better than SSIS in many cases. And Clojure may bring Lisp to the masses.
I'm not sure about that 'cross platform' except in advertising copy. We've got major apps that will only run on certain VERSIONS (forget platforms) of Java and won't even coexist on a machine. And it's not uncommon for a security patch to seriouslyl brake things.
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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