From: Chris Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org>
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [PERFORM] Postgres VS Oracle
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:49:45 -0400
Organization: cbbrowne Computing Inc
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <60lkegdpfq.fsf@dba2.int.libertyrms.com>
References: <c50dbb0b0706180855v4b781f13m6e54c50aa3ab1dee@mail.gmail.com>
	<4676BE31.6040701@commandprompt.com>
	<115F286D-0396-44DB-8E3B-8801B0924D66@indiana.edu>
	<200706191548.11577.achill@matrix.gatewaynet.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) XEmacs/21.4.20 (linux)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:MceBDBgj4WJuofPIxex6ymCks44=
To: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org

achill@matrix.gatewaynet.com (Achilleas Mantzios) writes:
>> I don't want to add gas to the flamewar, but I gotta ask.  What is in
>> the the 90 to 95% referred to in this email.
>
> short answer: all cases, possibly except when running a Bank or something 
> similar.

No, it's not to do with what enterprise you're running; the question
is what functionality is missing.

At the simplest level, I'd say that there are Oracle (+DB2) feature
sets that *are compelling*, particularly in the High Availability
area.

However, those feature sets are ones that require spending a Big Pile
Of Money (BPOM) to enable them.  

For instance, ORAC (multimaster replication) requires buying a bunch
of servers and spending a BPOM configuring and administering them.

If you haven't got the BPOM, or your application isn't so "mission
critical" as to justify budgeting a BPOM, then, simply put, you won't
be using ORAC functionality, and that discards one of the major
justifications for buying Oracle.

*NO* small business has that BPOM to spend on this, so *NO* database
operated by a small business can possibly justify "buying Oracle
because of ORAC."

There will be a lot of "departmental" sorts of applications that:

- Aren't that mission critical

- Don't have data models so sophisticated as to require the "features
  at the edges" of the big name commercial DBMSes (e.g. - partitioning,
  OLAP/Windowing features) that PostgreSQL currently lacks
   
and those two categorizations, it seems to me, likely define a
frontier that allow a whole lot of databases to fall into the "don't
need the Expensive Guys" region.
-- 
"cbbrowne","@","cbbrowne.com"
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/oses.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #219. "I will be selective in the hiring of
assassins.   Anyone who  attempts to  strike down  the hero  the first
instant his back is turned will not even be considered for the job."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>