Re: Oracle vs. Access

"Keld Forchhammer" <forchhammer_at_mail.tele.dk> wrote in message news:<3bfc1ad8$0$735$edfadb0f_at_dspool01.news.tele.dk>...
> Hi,
>
> Hope someone can help me with the following:
>
> I have an exam-question regaring in which degree Access and Oracle fulfill
> being relationel databases?
>
> Secoundary I would like to know the big diferences between these two
> databasesystems and their limitations? Can anyone shortly tell me these?
>
> Hope someone can help me soon :o)
>
> Hopefull regards - T.

Hi, I am NOT an Oracle DBA, I am an SQL Server DBA who works with Oracle from time to time -- so here goes.

1. Microsoft Access was originally designed as a desktop single user database - sort of one step up from a spread sheet.
2. Access had networking / file sharing features added later - they have very limited functionality... I think after about 4 users you start to see a major drop in performance.
3. Older versions of Access can actually KILL a web server when they come under load. They not only knock themselves off line, they can take down the whole server. This occurs (I believe) because Access was not designed to handle large numbers of concurrent users, I used to have a Microsoft document about it
4. Both Oracle and SQL server are designed to be used for large databases with many concurrent users. They are both able to scale out to very large sizes. Although my preference is to SQL server, I believe that in the Terrabyte size Oracle is better than SQL server.

So...

If your database is small and the number of concurrent users stays low, and it is the current version of Access - use it. It's cheap and you don't need more.

If the database is getting very large, and/or you must support large numbers of users look at SQL server and Oracle. In the end your budget will determine what you do. The difference in price is probably 20 - 1 over Access. Received on Thu Nov 22 2001 - 08:08:52 CST