Posted on 02/07/2006 4:58:58 AM PST by voletti
Can open-source upstarts compete with Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft? It's an uphill battle, but customers are starting to look at the alternatives
Rick Herman is awash in digital data. He's vice-president for business and legal affairs at Sony Online Entertainment, the division of Sony (SNE ) that handles Internet gaming. It's his job to ensure that the company's databases manage that information properly and on budget. To do that, Herman has traditionally relied on one of the three main database vendors: Oracle (ORCL ), IBM (IBM ), or Microsoft (MSFT ). But lately, he's doing a bit more shopping around.
It's not that the big three don't do a good job. There's a reason they have 85% of the $15 billion database market, notes Herman. But as you would expect in any market dominated by a few players, Herman is on the lookout for better prices and more flexibility to tailor database features for Sony's unique needs.
Sony, like most big companies, has been conservative when it comes to open source.
But that has changed since Linux, the open-source operating system, started making big inroads with servers, the computers that run Web sites and corporate networks. Those gains have let companies see firsthand the benefits of open source, which include lower costs and more control over the code.
Switching to an open-source database can slash costs for one of the most expensive segments of the software budget by as much as 90%. "If you had told us four or five years ago we would be considering these types of products at the rate we are, I would have looked at you like you were insane," he says. "But open source isn't going away, and I'm pretty excited about it."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
I have used MySQL (quite a bit in the past).
It's not THE best or fastest, but it's a stable database with lots of support out there, and there are a LOT of non-corporate websites out there that would never have happened were it not for open source like Linux, PHP and MySQL.
The only Oracle-killer out there is PostgreSQL http://www.postgresql.org/ .
I too inmstalled and used mySQL at home for a project. Its stable, has adequate support 9at least for my hitherto limited use) and is quite user-friendly.
MySQl and PostGres are both good databases. I wouldn't hesitate to use them. Of course, I'm maintaining an Access database that is larger than life so what do I know.
Masochist.
I'm just waiting for it to blow up. But I had a 1 gig Access db that was web-dedicated and it did really well. No problems. But we never deleted anything on it either.
Must be really low-traffic. I've been in involved in Access conversions to either MSSQL or MySQL, the reason for the transition being that the Access database was dying under the load -- can't support many concurrent accesses.
If you're still involved in the project, and that's a Microsoft shop, Microsoft now has MS SQL Server 2005 Express for free. It can handle 1 GB of memory, one processor and a 4 GB database. You can port over that Access DB at no cost and get much better reliability.
The 1 gig db has been retired. The Access db I am using now is FTPed from a vendor. I use Access db's to link to it to do reports or I run SAS against it.
Our major problem is a lack of a user base that can create reports from normalized DB data. The data structure is way too complicated for non-IT folks. I'm thinking of creating a "data warehouse" set of queries for it.
Views are great for this. Does Access do views? I can't remember.
At the very least, you never have to refresh and re-index a .mdb.
Yes, Access has SQL "views".
Queries function the same way. The key is to make the clueless user think it is a table or spreadsheet. I could create queries in Excel and make that available.
Of course, my production web server is running on NT 4.0 so I have other things to worry about. Dynamic webpages written in PHP by a student who is long gone. A tech rep upgraded the PHP to the latest version and the server went dark. I had to convince him to go back to the archaic PHP version that worked. I can't move it myself because it's "not my job" but if it gets pwned, it's my ass because I am charged with securing it. So I have to wait for a student to move it to a hosted webserver. Last I heard, he can't figure out how to do it.
If you do a lot of deletes, you better repair and resize the mdb periodically.
I just started using MySQL with two linux web apps - wordpress and Gallery - MySQL is a black box - the apps take care of DB creation and manipulation and the demands are pretty low - but having said all of that things went very, very smoothly.
A view is basically a query, but it's nice in that it can work both ways, allowing users to change the data through the simplified view.
A tech rep upgraded the PHP to the latest version and the server went dark.
Ouch, fire him quick. PHP changed a lot from the older versions to the current without complete backwards compatibility, so much that any somewhat complicated program won't work anymore. He should have known that. That's as bas as moving a complicated IIS5 site using SSI to IIS6 without taking into account the new SSI architecture.
Mail me private with details, maybe I can help, informally of course.
Thanks. I haven't used Access in quite a while (I don't like unnecessary pain) and any databases worth having views I've done on something better.
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