Eric M Russell (11/9/2011)
IceDread (11/8/2011)
The only advantage ms sql server has over oracle is it's price. Some would perhaps make an argument for the user interface as well. If ms sql server were to become closer in price to oracle, there is no reason at all to stay with ms sql server since it's inferior in every way.The usability of SQL Server compared to Oracle is deeper than just the GUI tools. It has to do with the underlying architecture. SQL Server is much easier to configure, secure, maintain, learn, and develope on. Even if the licensing cost of SQL Server and Oracle were identical, SQL Server would still be a more cost effective platform for developing and supporting database applications.
I must agree with you, Eric. Considering that my company has seven full-time Oracle DBAs who manage approximately 20 servers and 100 databases, and only two SQL Server DBAs (one full- and one part-time) who manage approximately 100 servers and 1000 databases, there is clearly a cost advantage for SQL Server administration. And by the way, our largest Oracle database is 200GB, and our largest SQL database is over 1TB, so it's not a matter of all of the smaller databases going into SQL.
I would love to hear from IceDread, what makes him think SQL is so inferior to Oracle (other than maybe he is more familiar with Oracle). As a DBA (both SQL and Oracle) who also develops applications, I can tell you that Oracle is very difficult to create connections for - worrying about having the client on every platform (development, acceptance, production), and worrying about the versions of the client... I find that Oracle is just more complicated than it needs to be all the way around.