Re: PostgreSQL vs. Oracle vs. Microsoft

Joe,
I appreciate your information, but it's not valid.  Most people don't
need RAC or table partitioning.  Many of the features in Oracle EE are
just not available in Postgresql at all, and many aren't available in
any version of SQL Server (table partitioning, bitmap indexes and
others).  If you want all the wiz-bang features, you have to pay the
wiz-bang price.  Just because Oracle reps are a little clueless
sometimes doesn't mean that the product pricing sucks.
The minimum user requirement for standard one is 5 users.  5*149=$745,
much less than half the price of a dual or single CPU config.

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with Oracle, but Oracle is a
fine product, that is available for not alot of $$ if you are willing
to use a bit of elbow grease to learn how it works and don't need
enterprise features, which many other database product simply don't
have, or work very poorly.

Alex Turner
NetEconomist


On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 06:56:52 -0800, Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com> wrote:
> Alex Turner wrote:
> > I'm not advocating that people switch to Oracle at all, It's still
> > much more expensive than Postgresql, and for most small and medium
> > applications Postgresql is much easier to manage and maintain.  I
> > would just like to make sure people get their facts straight.  I
> > worked for a company that selected MS SQL Server because it was
> > 'cheaper' than Oracle, when infact with the correct Oracle pricing,
> > Oracle was cheaper, and had superior features.  I would have prefered
> > that they use Postgresql, which for the project in question would have
> > been more appropriate and cost much less in hardware and software
> > requirements, but they had to have 'Industry Standard'.  Oracle ended
> > up costing <$10k with licenses at $149 ea for 25 users, and the
> > support contract wasn't that much of a bear - I can't remember exactly
> > how much, I think it was around $1800/yr.
>
> My facts were straight, and they come from firsthand experience. The
> point is, it is easy to get trapped into thinking to yourself, "great, I
> can get a dual CPU oracle server for ~$10K, that's not too bad...". But
> then later you figure out you really need table partitioning or RAC, and
> suddenly you have to jump directly to multiple 6 figures. The entry
> level Oracle pricing is mainly a marketing gimmick -- it is intended to
> get you hooked.
>
> Also note that the per named user license scheme is subject to per CPU
> minimums that guarantee you'll never spend less than half the per CPU
> price. Oracle's licensing is so complex that there are businesses out
> there that subsist solely on helping companies figure it out to save
> money, and they take a cut of the savings. Oracle's own account reps had
> a hard time answering this question -- does a hyperthreaded Intel CPU
> count as 1 or 2 CPUs from a licensing standpoint? We were eventually
> told 1, but that the decision was "subject to change in the future".
>
> Joe
>
>