Re: Difference - access versus oracle

On 30 Sep 1999 13:30:48 GMT, michaealccc_at_aol.com (Michaealccc) wrote:

>I was looking to install oracle or access for my company. This is a small
>company, 10 employees, with data information relating to the insurance field.
>Everyone works in their homes across the northeast. What are the major systems
>differences and which is the best for me? Cost is relevant, but not of major
>concern.
>
>Thanks.
>
>(I have searched deja but could not come up with anything if this has already
>been discussed.)

Being able to work at home remotely almost precludes the use of Access, as this is no client-server database, but a file-server database. This means: all records of a table will be sent to the local PC, processing is done on the local PC. Oracle will perform almost all processing on the server. Access is also not very well suited for large databases. A few years ago I was administering a database of some 50-60M, being used by more than 10 people and it crashed at least once a week. You won't see that with Oracle.
If you want to compare to similar products you should compare Oracle 8 and SQL-server 7 (God forbid, it is still a toy compared to Oracle, but it does seem to be able to run 'unattended'. Oracle definitely is not. If you apply very rigorous procedures from the start, you may not need to do much administering, but many people just start 'somewhere' and will end up creating havoc.

Hth,

Sybrand Bakker, (prejudiced) Oracle DBA (no I don't want to help Larry Ellisonn to increase his bank account) Received on Thu Sep 30 1999 - 14:20:38 CDT