Though Oracle and IBM deny that MySQL, PostgreSQL or other open-source offerings are a threat to their enterprise business, they are still taking steps to re-emphasize their low-end offerings. Read the article at NewsFactor.
Will the Real Database Leader Please Stand Up?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
One quick point:
The description of the SQL-92 standard is 100 pages
The description of the SQL-93 standard is 200 pages
The description of the SQL-99 standard is 2000 pages
MySQL is working on the 92 standard. Oracle is well over 1/2 way done the 99 standard.
It’s nice that Oracle see MySQL as something that can co-exist with them rather than heaving to compete directly. IBM’s statements seem a little awkward but maybe that’s just me…
it can coexist because it can’t compete on it’s level.
It can’t handle the I/O as well.
Lets not forget Firebird here..
http://www.ibphoenix.com
Firebird 1.5 competes extremely well against M$ and when run on a good Linux Distro link Gentoo, the Cost is almost nil.
It’s always MySQL, but MySQL is lacking in just about every area except speed, and if properly set up with the right indexes will compete extremely well against MysQL.
At my company we use both Oracle and Mysql. We tend to use Oracle if we have a large app thats not going to be installed in many places and Mysql if we have smaller apps that are going to be installed on many servers. Mainly because of cost. I would like to point out that the SAP database now open source seems to have many high end features taht Mysql may not.
DB2 still has major issues with regards to locks. It still uses row level locking for reads. Oracle and PostgreSQL use MVCC. Firebird claims to use MVCC too, but then I see issues on their bug list that involves deadlocks which are near impossible with MVCC.
I wish that PostgreSQL would drop their current procedural language implementation and just go with something like Oracle has. It is currently missing many necessary features and is kludgy anway.
MySQL is very far behind, but those guys do good work. So, when they do start to catch up with the ANSI standard the product should be nice.
I used Sybase and MSSQL several years ago and had major problems under high concurrency. I suspect Microsoft will work out their problems eventually.
I just can’t imagine using anything other than Oracle. It has so many awesome features that the other databases just do not compare. I hate dealing with software licenses, but Oracle is worth it. It is the only non free software that we use on our servers.
Favorite databases can certainly be a “religious” topic. We have used Informix products for almost 10 years. In our experience they are the fastest and easiest to administer for a production-level database. The latest version 9.4 (just released) is a powerful combination of their leading OLTP speed and their object-relational technology. Developers can define their own datatypes. This technology is used in unique products like the Time Series DataBlade, which we use in our internal systems. It can also run Java stored procedures in the engine. Tech-types will get excited if they spend the time to understand the Informix architecture. They did it right (far better than Oracle).
Granted, IBM hasn’t done the greatest job marketing Informix, but there are more developers working on it now than when it was acquired 2 years ago. Worth a look if you need speed and/or advanced development features.
I know that MySQL can’t compete with Oracle; and that other free databases are probably more feature rich, but so what. There are situation where Oracle is ridiculous overkill and MySQL fits just perfectly. It is very easy to use and rolling out a solution using it a fairly quick and painless process (unless you’re trying to use Python CGI connecting to MySQL on OpenBSD’s chrooted Apache while maintaining the chroot status).
Anyway, I mentioned a comparison between Linux and BSD in a different article and made the suggestion that Linux is more polished due mostly to popularity. I think the same may be true of MySQL. Since MySQL seems to be the most popular of the open source databases, I think it will mature and surpass other open source offerings fairly fast. If it ever is able to compete with Oracle, great. If not, who cares? There are plenty of places outside of the Oracle’s realm where MySQL does a fine job.
The article is all FUD. Who is the database leader? Most likely IBM, Oracle or MS. IBM and Oracle are sharing the high end market. MS is holding the mid to low end. There is the market below that. Low to no cost DBs. That’s the market where MySQL and PostgreSQL have, although others may differ. IBM is trying to compete with MS SQL Server. And unfortunately to some extent that means the MySQL and PostgreSQL. This is the same thing with servers. IBM and other unix vendors own the high end server space. MS generally exists in the lower end. MS is working hard to move up. And the Unixes trying to move down. This isn’t about IBM and Oracle trying to attack MySQL and PostgreSQL. This is about growing market share. It’s easy to take a piece of software that selling for thousands of dollars, and resell it at a cheaper price.
MSDE is basically SQL Server with some limits to connections and a few enterprise features not included.
You can get the high-end scores at tpc.org but MSDE/SQL Server own the low end for perf and features as well.
I haven’t used Informix, but I have heard good things. What makes it better than Oracle? You mentioned a few things like user defined types, objects and java stored procs. Oracle does have all of those.