SQL Server 2005 vs Oracle

Anyone know where I can find some good resources to help us choose between
SQL and Oracle ( Progress Openedge as well ) . Any comments on what you
would choose ?? We are creating a new Warehouse Management System which wil
manage our very large inventory.

Anyway comments suggestions welcome

Thanks
Paul

this is something like comparing oranges and apples but lets try...

Some questions arise:
- what platform are you intend to work Unix, Windows ?

Well, progress is dead meat, forget it.

SQL Server has many features and looks good, but in mission critical systems
it is still
five years behind of Oracle.

Oracle has been and will be RDBMS for many critical system, choose this.

Others are wellcome to comment ;)

"Paul" <paul@home.com> wrote in message news:5yWYf.4870$4S.829@edtnps82...
> Anyone know where I can find some good resources to help us choose between
> SQL and Oracle ( Progress Openedge as well ) . Any comments on what you
> would choose ?? We are creating a new Warehouse Management System which
> wil manage our very large inventory.
>
> Anyway comments suggestions welcome
>
> Thanks
> Paul
>

The user base for people using Microsoft SQL Server for their mission
critical database is massive, probably in terms of installations far out
numbers that of Oracle (notice I said installations rather than revenue).

Whilst SQL Server has a very strong BI offering that comes as part of the
product and included in the cost - Oracle doesn't, it relies on extensions
to its relational database and has no reporting facilities - you need to pay
extra to get BI with Oracle.

Others are wellcome to comment ;)

--
Tony Rogerson
SQL Server MVP
http://sqlserverfaq.com - free video tutorials


"Jack" <none@INVALIDmail.com> wrote in message
news:ug8Zf.124$_g4.0@read3.inet.fi...
> this is something like comparing oranges and apples but lets try...
>
> Some questions arise:
> - what platform are you intend to work Unix, Windows ?
>
> Well, progress is dead meat, forget it.
>
> SQL Server has many features and looks good, but in mission critical
> systems it is still
> five years behind of Oracle.
>
> Oracle has been and will be RDBMS for many critical system, choose this.
>
> Others are wellcome to comment ;)
>
> "Paul" <paul@home.com> wrote in message news:5yWYf.4870$4S.829@edtnps82...
 
>
>

Paul  wrote:
> Anyone know where I can find some good resources to help us choose between
> SQL and Oracle ( Progress Openedge as well ) . Any comments on what you
> would choose ?? We are creating a new Warehouse Management System which wi
l
> manage our very large inventory.
>
> Anyway comments suggestions welcome
>
> Thanks
> Paul

This type of question generally invites a bloody good flame war but I
will try to present some of the deltas that flavour Oracle in the least
inflammatory way that I can.

Be very careful when comparing these two products as the verbiage may be
the same but the concepts and technologies can be very different. For
example a database in SQL Sever equals a schema in Oracle and has
absolutely nothing to do with the Oracle concept of a database. Neither
is a SQL Server instance the same concept as an Oracle instance.

Both products have log files but they work in very different ways. In
SQL Server one sizes log files to handle the largest transaction and its
rollback. In Oracle one can perform an infinitely large transaction
using a couple of small log files.

Both products have tables but that is pretty much where the similarity
ends. Oracle provides heap tables (same as a SQL Server table) but also
two types of global temporary tables (the tables aren't temporary ...
the data is), external tables, compressed tables, index organized
tables, nested tables, partitioned, and XML tables. Not to mention
objects such as sorted hash clusters.

Talk about indexes and in SQL Server you find BTree and Bitmap indexes.
In Oracle you will also find bitmap join, compressed, descending,
function-based, reverse key, and no-segment indexes.

And this type of difference extends throughout the products. For example
SQL Server has no object types that perform the functions of Oracle's
packages, sequences, user-defined operators, rule-sets, and many more.

Look at security and you will find the differences are very substantial
as is the range of operating system options. You'll never run SQL Server
on Linux. And on Windows you will always be the target of every virus,
trojan, worm, and disgruntled employee that knows anything about the
o/s. Be sure to look at auditing with Sarbanes-Oxley and similar laws
in mind.

How important is 7x24 operation? There is no SQL Server technology
equivalent to Oracle' Real Application Clusters. They are working hard
in Redmond to get it in a future version but that is years away. And
how important would a capability such as resumable transactions be as
Oracle provides with their DBMS_RESUMABLE built-in package?

Be sure too to look at the differences in the transaction models. They
are completely different. In Oracle reads never block writes and writes
never block reads and there are an infinite number of row-level locks.
Lock escalation does not exist.

Finally, in spite of marketing types naming things to help sell them,
the fact is that SQL Server's Enterprise Edition is approximately
equal to Oracle's Standard Edition. Oracle's Enterprise Edition contains
essentially nothing but features SQL Server does not offer. Only the
name "Enterprise" is the same.

Feel free to contact me off-line if you wish as I have no interest in
fueling the inevitable name-calling any further than I already have.
Also feel free to visit my web site "Morgan's Library" at www.psoug.org.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)

they both work.

do you prefer a chevy pickup, or a dodge pickup?


but, this begs the question, WHY ARE YOU CREATING AN INVENTORY SYSTEM
FROM SCRATCH????????   go buy an application that fits your needs, and
use whatever they tell you to.

Doug  wrote:
> they both work.
>
> do you prefer a chevy pickup, or a dodge pickup?
>
>
> but, this begs the question, WHY ARE YOU CREATING AN INVENTORY SYSTEM
> FROM SCRATCH????????   go buy an application that fits your needs, and
> use whatever they tell you to.

Most applications are available supporting multiple database platforms.

Due diligence requires that first you make sure that the system complies
with the laws in your jurisdiction. If you can't achieve Sarbanes-Oxley
in the US or Basel II in Europe you can stop right there. And then there
is the entire issue around internal development to be considered.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)

On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 21:22:09 GMT, Paul wrote:

>Anyone know where I can find some good resources to help us choose between
>SQL and Oracle ( Progress Openedge as well ) . Any comments on what you
>would choose ?? We are creating a new Warehouse Management System which wil
>manage our very large inventory.
>
>Anyway comments suggestions welcome

Hi Paul,

The two major considerations are: what platform are you (or your staff)
already familiar with, and what features do you need.

Moving to a new platform is costly. You lose lots of productivity
attending courses or studying books. Then, you'll be less productive
while getting acquainted and using your new knowledge for real for the
first time. And you'll inevitably lose time cleaning up after using a
syntax that turns out to be disastrous in the new platform. If you're
familiar with either Oracle or SQL Server, stick with what you know!

Features: The platforms have a lot in common, but both also offer some
unique features. Visit MS' and Oracle's sites: both companies are very
good at pointing out the features their competitors lack. If any feature
that is critical or very important for your application is in one of the
products only, choose that product.

Price should be last on your list. Not because price is unimportant, but
because the other issues are even more important. You'll have to do your
own research, but here are some things that I have heard numerous times:
- Licensing cost for MS SQL Server is cheaper than for a comparable
Oracle setup. Of course, you do save on OS licensing costs if you
run Oracle on Linux.
- Oracle is more efficient. You have to spend less on hardware to get
the same performance.
- Oracle databases are harder to manage. A single DBA can easily manage
five or more SQL Servers, but you need at least three DBA's to manage
a single Oracle instance.
(I can't quote any URL for any of those, though - they might but they
might be urban legends just as well. I encourage you to check the facts
and find either confirmation or denial of what I read)

And if price can't help you decide either, you'll just have to flip a
coin, I guess. Or consider where you feel more at home - at a platform
that sees it's advocates roaming the newsgroups of the competition in
order to win some souls, or at a platform that has a strong community pf
users who'll try to find out what's best for you?  <WINK>

You'll have noticed that my comments are fairly broad. I can't give more
details, though, as I have no experience with Oracle. Everything I know
about Oracle is hearsay. This precludes me from posting an in-depth
comparison of Oracle vs MS SQL Server.

--
Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP

> Price should be last on your list. Not because price is unimportant, but
> because the other issues are even more important. You'll have to do your
> own research, but here are some things that I have heard numerous times:
> - Licensing cost for MS SQL Server is cheaper than for a comparable
>   Oracle setup. Of course, you do save on OS licensing costs if you
>   run Oracle on Linux.

Linux is cheaper, in fact it is free. However, if you use one of the big
boys (Red Hat, etc), then you may end up paying a large amount for
support costs. I've seen Linux cost more than Windows...and I've seen it
cost less too. That being said, you can always run Oracle on Windows and
it becomes a wash.

> - Oracle databases are harder to manage. A single DBA can easily manage
>   five or more SQL Servers, but you need at least three DBA's to manage
>   a single Oracle instance.

I would disagree here. At least, I would disagree if you are using
Oracle 10g. I do caveat that with the notion that I have not experienced
SQL Server 2005 yet. But I do have plenty of experience with SQL Server
2000 and much more with Oracle. Oracle 10g is the most self-managing
database Oracle has ever put out. It is much easier to manage than
previous Oracle versions.

Cheers,
Brian


--
 ====================
 ====================
 ====================
=======

Brian Peasland
oracle_dba@nospam.peasland.net
http://www.peasland.net

Remove the "nospam." from the email address to email me.


"I can give it to you cheap, quick, and good.
Now pick two out of the three" - Unknown

Hugo Kornelis wrote:

> Moving to a new platform is costly. You lose lots of productivity
> attending courses or studying books.

The average time it takes competent (the operative word here being
competent) Windows admins to learn Linux or most flavours of UNIX
sufficient to work with a database product whether Oracle or Sybase
or whatever) is less than a week.

Oracle on any flavor of UNIX is identical to Oracle on Windows once
the initial installation is completed. The only skill required after
that is minor variations of basic DOS navigation skills.

If you were talking about moving an entire enterprise I would agree
with you. But one or two database servers. I'd come in and do it in a
single day and so would many consultants.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)

On Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:57:05 -0700, DA Morgan wrote:

>Hugo Kornelis wrote:
> 
>
>The average time it takes competent (the operative word here being
>competent) Windows admins to learn Linux or most flavours of UNIX
>sufficient to work with a database product whether Oracle or Sybase
>or whatever) is less than a week.
(snip)

Hi DA,

I refered to the cost of moving to another database platform, ie someone
familiar with SQL Server moving to Oracle, or someone familiar with
Oracle moving to SQL Server.

--
Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP