Oracle8i vs. SQL Server 2000
Ernest D. Stalnaker
features of Oracle8i vs. Microsoft SQL Server 2000? I know that SQL Server
2000 is still in beta, but it is supposed to be released sometime this
summer. We are primarily an Oracle shop, but one of our departments is
considering switching to SQL Server, so I want to be able to give them some
accurate information on the pros & cons of making the switch.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me!
Ernest D. Stalnaker
Database Administrator
Management Information
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
E-Mail: ern...@purdue.edu
Norris
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/productinfo/SQL2K_Final_Eval.doc
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/productinfo/sql2krev.htm
Peter Livingwater
Ernest D. Stalnaker <ern...@purdue.edu> wrote in message
news:8i64ls$e3m$1...@mozo.cc.purdue.edu...
rmpo...@netzero.com
You should advise your group that is contemplating such a major SNAFU that
SQLServer at best is only scalable on the NT environment. It cannot take
advantage of the scalabilty available to Oracle. Also there were major
concerns over the last release's ability to support > 50 concurrent users.
This to my knowledge has not been addressed. Also you will want to consider
that SQLServer has NEVER been 7 X 24 unless you forgo good backups. You
cannot now nor have you been able to run a recoverable backup on this product
without running DBCC in single user mode. This is a carryover from when
Microsoft purchased SQLServer from Sybase.
For your sake make them aware of what this option limits the company to. If
I were you I would refuse to support it and look for another job. If you are
an Oracle DBA that should not be a problem.
Rick Powell
yen...@watsoncable.com
OCP DBA
Neil Pike
Please cite specific examples if you can, or tell us who has given you this information.
Everything you have written is completely wrong.
> Also there were major concerns over the last release's ability to support > 50 concurrent
users.
> This to my knowledge has not been addressed.
Que? I (and most SQL Server customers) have been running *many* more users than this on 1.1,
4.x, 6.x, 7.0 and 2000. Exactly who had these major concerns?
> Also you will want to consider that SQLServer has NEVER been 7 X 24 unless you forgo good >
backups.
Untrue. SQL Server has always been able to be backed up whilst running (and these backups
restore just fine). The performance of SQL Server was degraded quite a bit when doing this with
v6.5 and below, but the degradation is minimal with 7.0 and 2000. (It's impossible to backup a
database without affecting performance).
> You cannot now nor have you been able to run a recoverable backup on this product
> without running DBCC in single user mode. This is a carryover from when
> Microsoft purchased SQLServer from Sybase.
Again, not true and never has been. DBCC's have no effect on backups or recovery. What is true
is that with earlier versions of SQL Server you could not 100% trust the results of a DBCC if the
database was experiencing updates whilst you were dbcc'ing it. i.e. it was possible for a
corruption to be reported that wasn't really there - if you then wanted to determine 100% that
there was a corruption you would put the server in single-user mode and re-run it.
(But this has nothing whatsoever to do with backup or recovery)
> For your sake make them aware of what this option limits the company to. If
> I were you I would refuse to support it and look for another job. If you are
> an Oracle DBA that should not be a problem.
Maybe you should find out more about a product before slagging it off. Note I've said nothing
bad about Oracle - it is a good product, as are most of the other major dbms's. They'll all do a
good job.
Neil Pike MVP/MCSE. Protech Computing Ltd
Reply here - no email
SQL FAQ (484 entries) see
forumsb.compuserve.com/gvforums/UK/default.asp?SRV=MSDevApps (faqrtf.zip - L7 - SQL Public)
or http://www.ntfaq.com/Section.cfm?sectionID=34
or www.sqlserverfaq.com
or www.mssqlserver.com/faq
Cont...@streamlineindiana.com
fortune 500 companies that use both oracle and sql server 7. They both have
there good points and some limitations..... but most of those are going away
with the release of SQL Server2000 and Oracle 8. However, SQL Server 7 and
2000 win hands down when it comes to end-user ease of use. SQL Server is
fast and a non-programmer can program as well as maintain the server....
something that Oracle can't match. However, I understand that oracle 8i is
suppose to be more user friendly. Besides, many users have used MSAccess
and the switch to SQL Server 7 or 2000 is simple for them. Just to add my 2
cents.... <GRIN>
Thanks,
Cont...@streamlineindiana.com
"Neil Pike" <10057...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:VA.00000e2...@compuserve.com...
Greg D. Moore
Neil Pike wrote:
>
> Rick,
>
Thanks for jumping in Neil. I meant to address some of these issues
also.
> Please cite specific examples if you can, or tell us who has given you this information.
> Everything you have written is completely wrong.
>
> > Also there were major concerns over the last release's ability to support > 50 concurrent
> users.
> > This to my knowledge has not been addressed.
>
> Que? I (and most SQL Server customers) have been running *many* more users than this on 1.1,
> 4.x, 6.x, 7.0 and 2000. Exactly who had these major concerns?
>
We routinely have over 50 concurrent connections (many using the same
user id, but from different sources) w/o a problem. In fact, we expect
to scale one server up to 400+ concurrent connections without much
trouble.
> > Also you will want to consider that SQLServer has NEVER been 7 X 24 unless you forgo good >
> backups.
>
> Untrue. SQL Server has always been able to be backed up whilst running (and these backups
> restore just fine). The performance of SQL Server was degraded quite a bit when doing this with
> v6.5 and below, but the degradation is minimal with 7.0 and 2000. (It's impossible to backup a
> database without affecting performance).
>
Actually, that's not entirely true. With triple mirrored disks you can
do it (and SQL 2000 will support "serverless" (I think that's what they
are calling it) backups. Of course I'm sure you knew that. :-)
> > You cannot now nor have you been able to run a recoverable backup on this product
> > without running DBCC in single user mode. This is a carryover from when
> > Microsoft purchased SQLServer from Sybase.
>
> Again, not true and never has been. DBCC's have no effect on backups or recovery. What is true
> is that with earlier versions of SQL Server you could not 100% trust the results of a DBCC if the
> database was experiencing updates whilst you were dbcc'ing it. i.e. it was possible for a
> corruption to be reported that wasn't really there - if you then wanted to determine 100% that
> there was a corruption you would put the server in single-user mode and re-run it.
>
> (But this has nothing whatsoever to do with backup or recovery)
>
I'd argue slightly here. It is good policy to run a DBCC before
backups to ensure the validity of your database. Having said that, we
often run DBCC's against our db's in production w/o problems. (Only
when you want to do repairs do you have to actually have to go into
single-user mode.)
> > For your sake make them aware of what this option limits the company to. If
> > I were you I would refuse to support it and look for another job. If you are
> > an Oracle DBA that should not be a problem.
>
> Maybe you should find out more about a product before slagging it off. Note I've said nothing
> bad about Oracle - it is a good product, as are most of the other major dbms's. They'll all do a
> good job.
>
Oracle definitely has some real nice features. There are some very
good reasons that that it has the market it does. And yes, I'd say that
6.5 had some good sized shortcomings compared to Oracle. 7.0 has
removed almost all of those shortcomings. I'd say based on my limited
experience, that I'd trust (and in fact will ) 2000 to do anything I
throw at it.
If I'm forced to convert from SQL 7.0/2000, I think Oracle would be 3rd
on my list, after DB2.
Greg D. Moore
Cont...@streamlineindiana.com wrote:
>
> I must say, I have to agree with Neil on this issue. I work for several
> fortune 500 companies that use both oracle and sql server 7. They both have
> there good points and some limitations..... but most of those are going away
> with the release of SQL Server2000 and Oracle 8. However, SQL Server 7 and
> 2000 win hands down when it comes to end-user ease of use. SQL Server is
> fast and a non-programmer can program as well as maintain the server....
> something that Oracle can't match. However, I understand that oracle 8i is
> suppose to be more user friendly. Besides, many users have used MSAccess
> and the switch to SQL Server 7 or 2000 is simple for them. Just to add my 2
> cents.... <GRIN>
>
> Thanks,
> Cont...@streamlineindiana.com
One of my "favorite" environments (not being a real coder these days)
is an Access front-end and a SQL Server backend. And being able to
build a simple schema in Access and upsize it to SQL is nice.
I'll admit, I've not looked for a similar tool for Oracle.
(and if anyone wants to point one out to me, that would be fine.)
NetComrade
<moo...@greenms.com> wrote:
> One of my "favorite" environments (not being a real coder these days)
>is an Access front-end and a SQL Server backend. And being able to
>build a simple schema in Access and upsize it to SQL is nice.
> I'll admit, I've not looked for a similar tool for Oracle.
>
> (and if anyone wants to point one out to me, that would be fine.)
I believe you can have the same combo of Access/Oracle as well.. I use
Access to do simple loads into the db, the only part that sucks it
can't handle large amounts of data and creates case-sensitive
table/column names
Neil Pike
> Actually, that's not entirely true. With triple mirrored disks you can
> do it (and SQL 2000 will support "serverless" (I think that's what they
> are calling it) backups. Of course I'm sure you knew that. :-)
I did, but remember that it pauses SQL Server whilst doing it, so it does affect it! (albeit
briefly...)
> I'd argue slightly here. It is good policy to run a DBCC before
> backups to ensure the validity of your database.
If you don't run 24x7 I'd agree. On 24x7 systems I would normally take a dump of the db and then
load it to parallel hardware and then dbcc the parallel copy.
> If I'm forced to convert from SQL 7.0/2000, I think Oracle would be 3rd
> on my list, after DB2.
Probably the same here.
serg...@my-deja.com
know. However, if you are not a Windows shop then Microsoft products
(almost all of them) are not even a choice. I doubt that Microsoft will
start offering SQL Server for UNIX. So, then the question comes down to
Windows vs UNIX and that's another story.
If you are a Windows shop then SQL Server may be a less expensive
solution than Oracle while still providing the necessary performance.
Personally, I haven't had much success with SQL Server 6.5 or 7
(performance-wise). In fact, Oracle has outdone it every time (im my
cases).
Why do you think one of your departments is considering switching to SQL
Server? Are there problems with Oracle servers in place? Is it the cost?
If it's the cost than, probably, SQL Server is the way to go - it will
keep getting better.
Sergey
In article <399E08EE...@netzero.com>,
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Cont...@streamlineindiana.com
example we have a nightly file that updates a MSAccess database showing the
last 100 days of records for a program called CustQ. This program has an
Oracle back-end, but to show just 100 days worth of info in an MSAccess
database the make table query or the update query took up to 8 hours to
complete on a nightly basis. I have now mirrored the program direcly from
Oracle tables into the SQL Server 7 database and it takes all of 6 minutes
to update the last 5 years of data.... wow!!!
Just another thought.
Streamliners
"NetComrade " <andre...@bookexchange.net> wrote in message
news:37bf1cee...@news.earthlink.net...
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2000 02:09:24 GMT, "Greg D. Moore"
> <moo...@greenms.com> wrote:
>
>
> > One of my "favorite" environments (not being a real coder these days)
> >is an Access front-end and a SQL Server backend. And being able to
> >build a simple schema in Access and upsize it to SQL is nice.
> > I'll admit, I've not looked for a similar tool for Oracle.
> >
> > (and if anyone wants to point one out to me, that would be fine.)
>
mi...@usin.com
> This to my knowledge has not been addressed. Also you will want to
consider
> that SQLServer has NEVER been 7 X 24 unless you forgo good backups.
You
> cannot now nor have you been able to run a recoverable backup on this
product
> without running DBCC in single user mode. This is a carryover from
when
> Microsoft purchased SQLServer from Sybase.
A slight clarification on one point, you do not HAVE to run DBCC and you
can do a hot backup at almost any time even if there are active user
transactions going on at the time. SQL/Sybase servers do their backups
very differently than Oracle. The DBCC is a consistancy check of the
entire database that simply assures you that there were no database
corruptions present at the time the backup was made. This is an
insurance step. In Oracle, if you took a tablespace file off line,
backed it up, and it had a logical corruption (i.e. a screwed up page
chain, unreadable spot on disk, etc.), it's of little use. In
SQL/Sybase, DBCC will detect and possibly correct any problem before you
back up the data or loose any further data.
In article <399E08EE...@netzero.com>,
rmpo...@netzero.com wrote:
--
Michael Lackey mi...@usin.com