Solid Performer
Written: Nov 24 '00
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Pros: cheap, fast, easy to use
Cons: advanced features are not straight forward
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| jschlack's Full Review: SQL Server 7.0 Enterprise Edition |
I am a software developer for a telecommunications company. When faced with selecting a database for our product, I reviewed several offerings, including Oracle 8i and MS SQL Server 7. In fact, these were the two finalists.
Since cross-platform support was not a major issue, I was free to select the best database for the job. MS SQL Server 7 was my choice. My database needs were that the database needed to be easy to setup (we do not have a DBA, just several software engineers with varying degrees of SQL experience), supports a small number of users, and be able to quickly search through 10M to 20M records to extract about 30K records for a report.
MS SQL Server 7 was significantly faster than Oracle. When the database was empty, I was able to insert records at a rate of 250 per second. After populating 10.5M records for a test, the database averaged 110 records per second. I could not get Oracle to insert records at even 100 records per second for an empty database.
The query posed a problem. The initial query took 1 minute and 47 seconds using MS SQL Server. However, when using a clustered index (which is the correct type to use), the query took 3 seconds - including report formatting. The actual query only took 990 ms.
So, MS SQL Server definitely met my speed requirements.
MS SQL Server is easy to set up. It is a more complex than Access, but most basic features are handled well in the GUI interface. Oracle was much more difficult to work with.
Finally, pricing could not be beat. A 10 user license is about $2250. For Oracle, pricing depends on machine speed. For an 800 MHz Pentium III, the cost would be close to $19,000. That's 6 times the cost of the server on which the code runs. No thanks.
The major fault with MS SQL Server is that the advanced features are not intuitive. Truncating the transaction log or freeing up unused space is a bear.
For my needs MS SQL Server wins hands down.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jschlack
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Member: John
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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