Oracle vs MS SQL

[David Peacock]

Our IT manager is actually considering moving
our ERP from HP-UX/Informix(unidata) to MS/SQL.
He is going to buy new software that runs on SQL or Oracle.

I am trying to convince him to go with HP-UX/Oracle.

I need some help giving him reasons why we should go with Oracle. He says Oracle is harder to implement, more expensive and overkill for our needs.

What are some concrete reasons why Oracle is worth the extra costs?

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Hi:

I don't know about MS-SQL vs. Oracle but I can tell you that before I started with my present company, an attempt was made to implement the Baan ERP package on a very high-end NT server with an Oracle server. The results were fine at the test/development level but unfortunately performance sunk like a stone as load increased. The production version was HP-UX/Oracle and has performed very well.

Oracle DBA's are going to hate this but I find that anything at Oracle7 or above really requires very little maintenance or tuning past the initial setup. Most of the maintenance can be scripted.
If your ERP vendor can give you at least approximate tuning guidelines then getting Oracle up and running should be a breeze. Certainly, OS/DB maintenance tends to be but a small fraction of the maintenance that an ERP package requires. The vast majority of maintenance is in the area of application support.

[Wodisch]

Hello David,

how about Oracle being:
- pretty stable
- pretty reliable
- lots of expertise avalilable outside of Oracle Corp.
- lots of support available (like here ;-)
- lots of very good books available
- scales well over different hardware/operatings systems/vendors
- can address huge amounts of RAM (is anybody selling a box like the Sun E15000 or HP SuperDome running any flavour of Windows?)
- integrates well with almost all (it not really all) mayjor backup tools

enough reasons for me ;-)

Wodisch

[Krishna Prasad]

Yes there is more to Oracle then MS-SQL.

But there is also more to a Brick home then a grass hut.

Where would you like to live during a storm?

I have used Sybase and Oracle ---not MS-SQL however I heard Sybase and MS-SQL where closly related? ( Someone told me MS bought the rights to an old version of Sybase to get started? )

Oracle is by far the best of these two databases not even close....

The only reason I know why anyone would use MS-SQL over Oracle is simply $$$. This is of course just upfront $$. However, how much will down-time,performance, upgrades to hardware....re-hiring of new DBA's. ( I know a lot of DBA's that would leave if there shop went to MS-SQL)

If you have a large environment do everything you can to stay with Oracle. My prefrence would also be HP-UX but any version of Unix is better then NT in my opinion.