Why Oracle? 15

[Mongr1l]

Hello. I'm an MS SQL 2000 developer who was recently asked the merits of switching to Oracle.

Apparently, my boss got a bug in his ear about the beauty that is Oracle.

Not being an Oracle developer, my concern is understandable. Basically, what my boss is really asking me is if I wouldn't mind learning an entirely different platform. I guess the alternative would be to hire an Oracle developer....

So... my question is this: Why all the fuss? I mean, what can Oracle do that can't be done in MS SQL 2000 or MS SQL 2005?

Keep in mind that MS SQL 2005 now comes with a great ETL package that include BI studio. I mean, honestly, what can possibly compare to that?

- mongril

 

[Gooser]

Isn't MS SQL's Identity/Identity Seed/Identity Increment essentially the same thing

If not, what's the big difference?

v/r

Gooser

Why do today
that which may not need to be done tomorrow --me

 

[DotNetGnat]

except that it is tied to a table and you can't increment it manually

-DNG

 

[Gooser]

I don't understand the advantage of that, could you give me an example where it would be useful?



v/r

Gooser

Why do today
that which may not need to be done tomorrow --me

 

[SQLSister]

sure you can increment it manually if set identity_insert to on. It's just that normally you wouldn't want to do that or you would be using an identity field to begin with. And you can put an identity on a temp table if you want the sequence for an ordered set of records.

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[SQLDenis]

and of course ROW_NUMBER() and other windowing functions in SQL server 2005

Denis The SQL Menace
SQL blog:

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

Personal Blog:

http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/

 

[km2x]

I am a developer with Oracle right now and we are looking towards migrating to SQL Server. One of the big things that I use quite frequently are the analytical/windowing functions. Can anyone comment on that aspect of SQL Server?

Thanks,

KM2X

 

[SQLSister]

km2x - perhaps you could describe a bit of what you do and we could tell you how that is done in SQL Server, but it might be best to put it into a thread of it's own

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[SQLDenis]

DENSE_RANK
RANK
ROW_NUMBER and NTILE are the new windowing functions in SQL server 2005


Denis The SQL Menace
SQL blog:

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

Personal Blog:

http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/

 

[Gooser]

But let me know where that thread is...please.

Interesting stuff, as usual.

SELECT NickName, DIFFERENCE(NickName,'Gooser') AS 'Difference'
FROM TekTipsUsers
WHERE DIFFERENCE(NickName,'Gooser')= 4

(Results)

NickName  Difference
--------- -----------
Gooser    4

Does this mean I am one-of-a-kind?

About Soundex

 

[SQLDenis]

SELECT DIFFERENCE('Gooser','Gooooooooser') AS 'Difference',
SOUNDEX('Gooser'),SOUNDEX('Goooooooser') ,
 SOUNDEX ('Gooser'), SOUNDEX ('Guser')

Denis The SQL Menace
SQL blog:

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

Personal Blog:

http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/

 

[Walid]

You guys look at this the wrong way. You keep asking why you should learn Oracle and the thread is going with you in that trend comparing and accusing and defending while the question you should be asking yourself is why not??
What is your boss asking you to do is basically to get paid to learn something that has a reputation of being powerful and has a job demand and it is expensive to learn on your own.

Are not you just a lucky guy?!! I can’t believe you have the nerve to complain about it. Ask the company to register you in classes, send you to training and let them pay to satisfy their fancy about Oracle while you adding to your skills and improve your resume.

Setup new test server, compare features between the two platforms, have fun instead of being depressed about. I hope this will give you another perspective for this problem.

Good luck


Walid Magd (MCP)

The primary challenge of every software development team is to engineer the illusion of simplicity in the face of essential complexity.
-Grady Booch

 

[SQLSister]

I'm sorry that attitude is only good if you don't intend to stay at the company through the entire transition period. I suggested the cost benefit analysis because it is almost never in the company's best interest to waste money doing a move like this when the current system is able to handle your needs. As a professional, it is your job to watch out for the company's best interests. This is a waste of money all around. It is not in his best interests because if they do go to Oracle he will spend the next year or more dealing with critical urgent issues that have to be fixed right now on a system he is unfamilar with when the old system would not have had those problems because the bugs have been worked through. Converting an enterprise database is something that no one in his right mind takes on voluntarily; it's painful enough when you have no choice because the existing system no longer meets the business needs. When it still does meet your needs (and maybe works better than the system you are going to) it just adds stress to your life for no good reason whatsoever.

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[Gooser]

Amen, Sister!

--Gooser

 

[mrdenny]

Amen!!!

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000) / MCTS (SQL 2005) / MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[Walid]

SQLSister,

While I agree with you completely form the point of view of being professional and honest, I Know for sure that this is not what is the company is looking for. I learned the hard way that, this approach almost always will lead to you being accused by being incompetent and the company will execute the new strategy anyway with or without you on board. There are no guarantees in the job, neither in life for that matter but I don’t want be philosophical, the company can go out of business due to strong competition, acquired by another company with different strategy, lay off some good people to save some money, etc. The only thing that will be left to you is you and what is on your resume. Cooperate America (or any Cooperate) doesn’t keep you around because you are a good friend or because you are gorgeous, you are a gear in the system, once you stop rolling with the others you will be replaced. Read the first post, you find a very clear indication that the manager give him a hint that he want him to learn instead of hiring some one can do it. The problem in the developers community – as a developer I am allowed to make such comment – is that we are so technical, we don’t see the business side of it, we don’t talk the dollars and cents language only 1s and 0s. Did you even consider the possibility that the company’s decision, didn’t come out of the blue? High level management maybe thinking strategically and plan for being acquired in few years by X company and they know that supporting this platform will put them in a better position in the negotiation process. Maybe, maybe, maybe, etc

The question is, if he is not the one who is suggested using Oracle, so he is not the one who is wasting the company’s $$ - assuming it is waste to begin with – and he received a direct order from his superior to help the company taking this move or he will be replace; Should he lead a war defending his vision or should he take the opportunity to learn something new. Your point of view is extremely technical SQLSister, and I bet you will have another view point if your job was the one at risk. Mine is more pragmatic and to every one’s interest I think. By the way, spending a year of handling that much of technical problems has another name, it is called invaluable technical experience


Walid Magd (MCP)

The primary challenge of every software development team is to engineer the illusion of simplicity in the face of essential complexity.
-Grady Booch

 

[cmmrfrds]

I use both Transact_SQL and Oracle SQL, but right now am doing mostly Oracle SQL against our Data Warehouse.

Willif and KM2x, I agree the Analytical Functions is Oracle SQL are something that make SQL coding more productive. Many problems can be solved more efficiently that are not easily solvable in Transact_SQL. The explain plans show that the SQL runs efficiently and is less costly in both time and resources than work arounds in Transact_SQL.

I read the documentation for SQL Server 2005 and as MR. Denny points out there are 4 Analytical Functions. I use RANK and DENSE_RANK most frequently but also use FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE and make extensive use of the Window Functions. I could not tell from reading the documentation whether Windowing Functions are part of SQL Server 2005.

In our Data Warehouse we make extensive use of table partitioning and materialized views - very valuable in optimizations of queries and reports. I am not sure what the couterparts are in SQL Server 2005, perhaps somebody can respond.

I am curious what Analytical Functions you use.

 

[gharabed]

I have been an Oracle DBA and developer since 1988. In addition I've worked as a DBA and developer a bit with SQL Server 2000. Again, I primarily have experience with Oracle and none with SQL Server 2005 so I can't speak to 2005. Here is my opinion.

Scale - I believe both of the DBMS's have their merits. I think SQL Server is great in a small to medium sized workgroup environment. But in my experience it doesn't scale for large applications. In one of the earlier threads somebody made a point about Windows. If you are a real Windows shop then you should probably stick with SQL Server since you have the staff that understands the architecture. However, if you are a pure windows shop then you most likely aren't running a large scale back end. SQL Server's clustering technology seems almost useless to me. Perhaps it's the way the engineers implemented it in the system that I inherited but having to partition the data across nodes in SQL Server clustering seems to defeat the whole purpose of a cluster. Oracle's clustering allows for concurrent access/updating of all data in the database from any node.

Data Warehousing - As far as data warehousing goes, one feature that Oracle has is partitioning of data by rows (known as "horizontal partitioning"). In our current sql server warehouse, we've had to split data up into multiple tables because of the sheer amount of data we have and the poor performance if all of the data for a given fact is stored in a single table.

Application Development - While out of the box, it is faster to be productive as a developer with sql server, I am not very impressed with the native development tools for either database (although I've just downloaded Oracle Developer from Oracle which my understanding is free.) Query Analyzer has some cool capabilities. Comparing tsql and PL/SQL...both languages are pretty powerful. However, tsql isn't really built for large scale development in my opinion. Oracle PL/SQL supports packages and a lot of object oriented features. From a pure language standpoint it is really a better development language. While I haven't actually used the Java capability, if you have a lot of java developers and no pl/sql developers you can develop you stored procedures, etc in Java.

There is a lot more that can be said about both of the databases but there isn't the space in this thread. A book could probably be written about comparing the two databases.

 

[SQLDenis]

horizontal partitioning exists in SQl server also
2005 has native partitioning, in 2000 you would create partitioned views

Denis The SQL Menace
SQL blog:

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

Personal Blog:

http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/

 

[vongrunt]

What is that Oracle thing anyway? Something from Matrix?

(j/k)

Gimme Oracle engine and PL/SQL and I'm happy. Gimme Oracle tools and I'll curse 24/7/52. Gimme consultant preaching about Oracle and I'll put him into spaceship with sublight engines and direct towards nearest massive black hole.

(!j/k)



------
chemistry - the only natural science that can be broken down into the categories a) making drugs and b) blowing stuff up

 

[chrissie1]

I'll put him into spaceship with sublight engines and direct towards nearest massive black hole.

He would be dead for a couple milion years before he gets there. If he ever gets there.

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

"My new site" - Me