On 01/21/2011 05:10 AM, Robert Paresi wrote:
> Price and features. There are some changes in V12 which is causing us to
> do some steps with our support and resellers. We've always wanted to
> move away from Sybase so we can make more of a profit off our software
> and lower costs for us and our clients. Sybase is a wonderful product,
> and when things stay the same - we stay the same. But, since V12 is
> requiring us to make internal changes, step changes, documentation
> changes, training changes ... then it's a good time for us to stop and
> look at alternatives if we were going to look at them anyway.
OK, so you're facing vendor price push and backward-compat issues. Since
you have to make changes anyway, you're trying to decide whether it's
worth making somewhat bigger changes to move to a royalty-free platform.
Makes sense; you're not just looking at change for change's sake.
It'd help if you enumerated the features (outside core SQL) that you use
heavily in Sybase, how you access Sybase, what replication if any you
use, how you handle backups, all that sort of thing. All that makes a
difference.
For example, if you're using standard SQL and accessing Sybase via JDBC
(or even ODBC), a transition might not be too bad. If you're using
native client libraries for Sybase T-SQL and using lots of
Sybase-specific extensions, the license cost savings may not be worth
the dev costs involved in making a move.
> If we can save $100K a year moving to PostGres and give our customers
> better pricing, then it only makes sense to move - if PostGres does the
> same thing that Sybase does.
Imagine a two-circle venn diagram with a large inner overlap. The large
inner overlap, consisting of the capabilities and features shared by
both databases, is most of the area. There's still plenty on the outside
of the shared area that only one database or the other does.
What you need to do is figure out how much of that "sybase only" section
you use. To do that, you need to figure out how you use Sybase, which
features you use are part of the SQL standards, etc.
> They are a premium software vendor and have a premium product, but
> charge a premium price for it.
I tend to think of them as small fry compared to IBM, Oracle and
Microsoft. They're certainly more significant than folks like Cache,
Progress, etc though.
--
Craig Ringer