April 15, 2008 at 8:40 am
Friends,
I am working on a project to build a Web Based Education System. There are different modules like Online Admissions, Attendance, Assessment, Discussion Communities, Job Portals, and some of them are supposed to work offline (as desktop apps). I am planning to use ASP.NET (VB.NET) and SQL Server 2005. As in my view, it can be easily be hosted on some good hosting facility.
There is another colleague of mine, who works in Oracle / Developer. He and my Director IT are convinced that we should be using ORACLE for this whole Web Based Education System, and they provide no solid reason for doing so. However, They also believe that ultimately we have to shift all this stuff towards ASP.NET / SQL.
Can we have a discussion over here, as whats the good platform to go for such an application, what can be the disadvantages of using SQL or ORACLE, what problems can be faced while integration, and shifting towards ASP.NET after four/five months. And how it can be integrated if some desktop apps are developed in ORACLE/Developer, while web apps are in other platform.
This dialogue can help me in generating a report for the policy makers in this regard.
Thanks & Best Regards,
April 15, 2008 at 10:40 am
If the plan is to switch to SQL/.NET in a few months, starting out with Oracle will simply increase costs without any real benefit.
The best thing to do is evaluate what the technical needs are for the final product, and then compare those needs to the features of various solutions, and then compare price to expected benefit for the various possible solutions.
The lowest initial cost would be Linux servers, with Apache and MySQL (or another FOSS database), and PERL/Java for the front end. The only cost is the hardware, if you have personnel who can build and maintain these systems. There are studies that say that total cost over time is comparable to other solutions, but you'll need to judge this on your own. (Take a look on the Web for "LAMP stack" solutions.)
Oracle on Linux/Unix has some advantages in terms of scalability. Oracle on Windows Server is another possibility. Java or some other dev language would probably be the best bet for this.
SQL 2005 on Windows Server, with .NET for the front-end, is my personal favorite, but I have to admit to a certain degree of prejudice on this one because it's where my skills are and where my paycheck comes from. The advantage to this one is it's a one-stop-shop and is very tightly integrated. The disadvantage is that it's very proprietary software and you'll end up with a high degree of lock-in.
Technically, any of these will probably do what you need. The thing to do is to review what it would take for your particular solution to be built in each, then figure out which one best fits your needs and your resources.
But I can definitely recommend against planning on starting with one solution and then switching to another. That's just asking for more complexity and cost for the whole thing. Pick one, and plan to stick with it for the foreseeable future.
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April 15, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I agree that it is pretty crazy to start a project on one platform making the assumption that you will have to switch to another platform unless you are taking about expecting to have to scale up in a product line (start with SQL Express and move to SQL Server).
I would be suspicious of the skills of any developer or project manager who planned a project to start using Oracle expecting it to have to shift to SQL Server. That just sounds like a plan to have something cost too much and not work correctly.
April 15, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Thats what I am suspicious of as well; I mean the skills of the developer and the Project Manager as well. I have talked to them, tried to convince them but to no vain. Actually, both agree themselves that they know nothing about .NET or SQL Server. Since its a Govt. Organization and policy makers are non-technical people, so I need to make them understand that what exactly should be done to achieve the goal of Web Based Education System.
Its a small govt. organization, with limited resources in hand. mostly Intel P-4 machines and a few Core 2 DUO and of-course very limited funds.
In simple terminolgies, how better it can be explained to policy makers that starting off with Oracle for one single module (let say Admissions), while working to develop other modules in other platform will not serve the purpose.
Thanks for your views ...
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