Re: Oracle and Postgresql

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 08:25:53AM -0500, Roberts, Jon wrote:
> My top 10 reasons why companies pick Oracle.

Do you mean they actually get these things, or they imagine they do?

There certainly are a lot of false perceptions out in the world about
Oracle, and about proprietary software in general.

> 1. 24x7 Support

At several different places over the years, I've seen their top-tier
support simply not respond.

> 2. Security: Patches,

When they get good and ready. There are outstanding security issues
in Oracle that have been there for years.

> Row Level Security,

I think you mean access control. Access control has so little overlap
with security that they really need to be discussed as separate
subjects.

> Roles,

We have 'em.

> encryption,

We have it.

> protection of database code, etc.

Are you saying that the fact that the source isn't legally available
to the population at large is a feature? If you are, it's an argument
for security by obscurity, a system with a lot of deep known flaws.

> 3. Software indemnification (which is open source's biggest
> problem)

Are you kidding?!? Read the EULA for Oracle or any other proprietary
software package and then read the BSD license. They both indemnify
about the same thing, i.e. nothing. If you have any examples in case
law that show otherwise, they'd be a great thing to bring forth.

> 4. Scalability of shared disk (Oracle RAC)

RAC doesn't scale outside Oracle's sales literature, as far as I've
seen.

> 5. Works extremely well from anything from hosting LDAP to OLTP
> applications to data warehouses with ROLAP and MOLAP

Now we're vaguely getting somewhere within shouting range of reality.
While the first half of that is hotly debatable, they've got decent
*OLAP.

> 6. Best, oldest, and most proven concurrency model for any
> commercial database product

It's none of those things.

> 7. Runs great on various platforms not just Linux or just Windows

Is this different from some other RDBMS(s) out there, and if so, which
one(s)? The only "just Windows" RDBMS I've ever heard of is MS SQL
Server, and I know of no "just Linux" ones.

> 8. Recruiting a senior level Oracle professional with over 10 years
> of experience is not very difficult

Finding somebody with 10 years' experience is no problem. Finding
somebody half-way competent is a different story.

> 9. Deep, deep discounts. I've never seen any company pay list
> price for Oracle products. It has always been at least 50% off if
> not more.

50% off a price that's bloated by 1000% or more isn't much of a
muchness.

> 10. Sales employees that will do anything to retain or grow your
> business.

That's just great if you prefer hookers and blow to a working RDBMS.

> The initial price of the product factors into the equation for big
> companies but when you look at all the value add of Oracle, it is
> very tempting.

Their sales and marketing people have certainly done an excellent job
creating the perceptions above, among others, and spreading them
around the industry.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david(dot)fetter(at)gmail(dot)com

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