Friday, September 25, 2009

MS SQL 2008 or Oracle 11g - Part II


I want to elaborate on what I touched on in my previous post - MS SQL 2008 vs Oracle 11g

I mentioned why the manager of a listed Australian company decided to switch from Oracle to the latest release of Microsoft SQL:

1. Oracle refuses to cut down their price
2. Microsoft SQL is slowing catching up with the release of version 2008
3. We can accept the lower performance as long as the business users do not complain when they access the web applications
4. I save a lot of money by not having to send my developers to learn Oracle database

These days, CIOs train their technical managers real well. They have slowly imparted the notion of cost-vs-performance into the brains of the technical managers. 




Thus, if performance is not greatly impacted, it is OK to go for a lower-end product. The key point is - not greatly impacted. Otherwise, all heads will be chopped including that of the CIOs'.  :)


The next cost-saving lesson that is imparted to the technical managers is to cut down the cost spent on Product Training. We are not saying that Product Training should be avoided at all. However, if there is a choice, a Product should be chosen based on ease of use


Lastly, everyone knows that most fresh graduates these days are not familiar with Unix stuff. They are also not strong in highly-available/scalable concept.  (OK, at least in Singapore context. We are also lucky in Azimuth - our fresh graduates are good in their Unix)

Thus when a Product is chosen, we need to look at the team we have. I believe if an appropriate tool is given to the right people, they are then able to produce great output. Otherwise, they will be spending too much time trying to learn the product, rather than to spend the time on design and coding.




That will bring me back to what I always preach - keep things simple! Especially in coding, I always share with my team that when we code, we code with the next person taking over in mind. 

That next person will always be your junior - with lesser experience. We do not want to spend a lot of time going over the codes line by line during handing over.




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