March 2, 2005 at 10:36 am
Gurus,
I need your help. Our company is on the verge of selection which DBMS platform to choose for SAP. I'm trying to compare strengths and weaknesses of SQL Server vs. Oracle. I have a very good knowledge of SQL Server but I want other ideas from you gurus! Would you please comment out on the list below?
These are the criteria that my boss are looking into:
Change Management
Automated Corrective Actions
Propensity for Deadlocks
Operational Cost
Acquisition Cost
High Availability
Product Support
Security
Staff Expertise
Enterprise DBMS Strategy
Reliability
Scaleability
Online Defragmentation
Online Index Creation
Full and Partial Unattended Backup
Online Repair and Recovery
Online Table Definition Changes
Online Database Configuration Changes
Third Party Vendor Administration Tools
Automated Tuning of Queries
Dynamic Cache Allocation
Point and Click Tuning Wizards
Data Partitioning
table compression
Fast data loading and parallelism
Supports failover clustering based on multi-node shared disk/storage area network (SAN) architecture
Support for Log Shipping for Business Continuity
Thanks,
Dex
March 2, 2005 at 12:49 pm
What a subject! You need a book, not a post in a forum. I'll give you my thoughts on the matter (but remember what free advice is worth)
Change Management - Pretty much a wash here, change will be handled by SAP for the most part.
Automated Corrective Actions - I'm not sure exactly what you are getting at here, but SQL Server has better "out of the box" automation capabilities than Oracle.
Propensity for Deadlocks - Oracle's use of rollback segments significantly reduces the occurrence of blocking of all sorts, but it comes at a cost. They tend to be a pain to manage.
Operational Cost - Generally, SQL Server wins this one
Acquisition Cost - No question, SQL is better here
High Availability - I'd give a slight edge to Oracle (at least until SQL 2005 is out). They have superior index maintenance capability.
Product Support - SQL Server, no question. Every time we have to deal with Oracle support it is a pain.
Security - Oracle's security model is more robust (flexible) but requires more expertise and administrative overhead.
Staff Expertise - SQL Server wins this one, the learning curve is much steeper for Oracle. However, this has lead many companies to assume that anyone can properly manage SQL Server. Bad move...
Enterprise DBMS Strategy - Frankly IBM, Oracle, and MS all have their heads up their marketing department's rear ends. They are all in full retreat from sound data management principles.
Reliability - Both are extremely reliable. SQL Server has suffered an undeserved reputation as being less reliable than Oracle because it is so often managed incompetently. This is also a function of hardware.
Scaleability - SQL Server's primary limitation in this regard has been hardware. But that situation is changing.
Online Defragmentation - Oracle has better online index maintenance features (at least until 2005)
Online Index Creation - A wash, new indexes can't be used until they are complete, but in both, the table remains available.
Full and Partial Unattended Backup - Both have robust backup and recovery options, but Oracle's are much more work to setup and use.
Online Repair and Recovery - I'll call it a wash
Online Table Definition Changes - again, a wash
Online Database Configuration Changes - about the same
Third Party Vendor Administration Tools - Oracle has a much larger group of third party tools available, but I don't consider that a positive. With SQL Server you don't NEED as many third party tools.
Automated Tuning of Queries - SQL Server has SQL Profiler/Trace which is much better than anything Oracle comes with out of the box.
Dynamic Cache Allocation - SQL Server. Oracle just started getting into this with 9 and it still isn't as good as SQL. Your DBA's will spend much more time calculating and managing memory in Oracle than with SQL.
Point and Click Tuning Wizards - No question. SQL
Data Partitioning - Oracle wins this one hands down. 2005 might begin to change this, but I don't expect it to be as robust as Oracle.
table compression - Don't know about this. SQL Server doesn't have any capability in this regard (unless you talk about Analysis Services) but I'm not familiar with Oracle's capability, or lack therof.
Fast data loading and parallelism - Oracle wins this primarly due to its partitioning and index maintenance.
Supports failover clustering based on multi-node shared disk/storage area network (SAN) architecture - SQL Server. Both offer it, but SQL Server/Windows is MUCH easier to setup and maintain.
Support for Log Shipping for Business Continuity - SQL Server
Basically, it comes down to this: Oracle has more buttons to push and knobs to turn which means it is more flexible, but expect to pay a pretty steep price in both money and time to manage it.
/*****************
If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
*****************/
March 3, 2005 at 3:08 am
What DBMSs do you already have in-house? If you only have SQL Server, go with that. The support costs of bringing in anything else will outweigh any other advantages, unless you are looking at multi-terabyte sized databases - SQL Server is weaker than either Oracle or DB2 at the very high end.
Also, what do SAP or any business partner you might have to help you support SAP suggest. Their experience is worth a great deal.
If you do not have any preference, then DB2 has the best DBMS technology and best integration with SAP.
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara
March 3, 2005 at 3:14 am
Just throwing in a link, which might also help here:
And honestly, I think an online community can't help you much with this question. That depends on too many factors in your company. And almost always it is a rather political decision, not a solely technical based.
--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]
March 3, 2005 at 3:39 am
"And honestly, I think an online community can't help you much with this question. That depends on too many factors in your company. And almost always it is a rather political decision, not a solely technical based."
I completely agree.
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara
March 3, 2005 at 9:14 am
I might add that unless your company is running *NIX servers or a mainframe (for DB2)-or is planning to-you might as well stop wasting time and just use SQL Server. Oracle and DB2 will run on Windows, but mostly doing so is a waste of money and time. IMHO.
I should also state that my experience with all three platforms does not include SAP. The only third pary application that we ran on multiple platforms was Business Objects. For BO SQL Server ran circles around Oracle initally, but that was mostly configuration issues (and we had a staff of experienced Oracle DBA's). Like the other posts indicated, for political issues, we wound up running BO on Oracle when we got new hardware for it...
Your mileage may differ, but generally, unless there is a real strong reason to do otherwise, you will likely be better off sticking with what you already know and use. The benchmarks show that SAP is capable of running on either platform with excellent results.
Again, free advise is worth what you pay for it, but it sometimes is more valuable than the advise you pay for...
/*****************
If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
*****************/
March 4, 2005 at 8:31 am
Gurus,
Thank you for all your advise! We're currently using SQL Server with our hr/payroll program(Kronos). I'll be doing a presentation next week on this issue and I'll be putting your advises on it. Hopefully they'll be convince after the presentation. I think SQL Server has a very big advantage on the cost of implementing/maintaining SAP so that's a very big factor in our company.
Thank you for all your help and I'll keep you guys posted!
Regards,
Dex
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