Re: [Fwd: MySQL announces MaxDB as new name for SAP DB]

-----Original Message-----
From: Kaarel [mailto:kaarel(at)future(dot)ee]
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 7:16 AM
To: pgsql-advocacy(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: [pgsql-advocacy] [Fwd: MySQL announces MaxDB as new name for
SAP DB]

>Anyway, the business model of covering both needs - speed and features
-
>is great. However they now have officially two different databases to
>manage. The only thing better than that approach is one database that
is
>fast *and* featurefull....can this be PostgreSQL?

Kaarel, remember that you are reading a marketing announcement. Its
design is to catch your eye and make you feel good about the database.
mysql has a much stronger commercial focus, for good or for evil
(debatable). As a potential developer, you need to be more concerned
with much more practical answers:

1. How does said database affect my development time?
2. What kind of portability issues are there?
3. What are the costs associated with commercial deployment?
4. What kind of support can I expect from the user community?
5. Does the database meet my technical requirements?
6. What are the ongoing administration costs?

I have found, (in almost 6 years of database work), that postgres is a
clear winner in all categories. This is a experience gained not from
successful projects, but from failed ones; I've learned some hard
lessons that I would not like to relearn :)

IMO, as of postgres 7.1, there are few reasons to choose any other
database (with the special exception of the windows platform, you may be
better off with ms sql server, but not for long!). If you truly
understand databases and love your work, you should have an appreciation
of why this is true.

Merlin

merlin(dot)moncure(at)rcsonline(dot)com ("Merlin Moncure") writes:
> Kaarel, remember that you are reading a marketing announcement. Its
> design is to catch your eye and make you feel good about the database.
> mysql has a much stronger commercial focus, for good or for evil
> (debatable). As a potential developer, you need to be more concerned
> with much more practical answers:
>
> 1. How does said database affect my development time?
> 2. What kind of portability issues are there?
> 3. What are the costs associated with commercial deployment?
> 4. What kind of support can I expect from the user community?
> 5. Does the database meet my technical requirements?
> 6. What are the ongoing administration costs?

That is an excellent set of questions, relevant to _any_ evaluation of
database products. I'd suggest a couple more...

7. What kind of support can I expect from the vendor/producer, and at
what costs?

That's often separate from "user community," and also points to the
issue of what kinds of support _cannot_ be provided by a "user
community" when you're dealing with proprietary software.

For instance, if you have sufficiently severe database corruption
problems with Oracle, it is possible to get them to fly in an
engineer that has tools for manipulating corrupted databases that
aren't available to the community at large.

8. What risks do I incur by choosing the software? Does the vendor
have a history of making capricious changes to the software, licenses,
or pricing?

Apple has had a history of discontinuing products about which they
had previously made big promises, to the point to which there are
people who would, as a result, reject them outright from any sort of
vendor list. Some of the way that "Rhapsody" and Newton were dealt
with was quite disgraceful.

I have seen a few database products disappear as a result of vendors
doing buyouts and/or deciding that the products weren't in their
"strategic interests." "SOLID" SQL Server was an interesting one;
they wanted to get more into the "embedded" market, and the
~$150/host licensing option has apparently disappeared, probably to
some users' chagrin.

It looks like there will be some _very_ interesting shifts of
"strategic interests" affecting the communities presently using
MySQL and SAP-DB as a result of the conglomeration of those
products, as well as the changes MySQL AB has been making in their
licenses. Those that were depending on the previous license
arrangements for SAP-DB may need to change to anew DBMS.
--
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Merlin,

> Kaarel, remember that you are reading a marketing announcement. Its
> design is to catch your eye and make you feel good about the database.

Uh, you're preaching to the choir. Kaarel was pointing out that MySQL/SAP-DB
gives you a choice of 2 databases, one which is fast and one which is
powerful, but with PostgreSQL, you get both qualities in one database.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco