Re: Oracle versus MS Sql Server

From: Jim Kennedy <kennedy-family_at_home.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 17:15:09 GMT
Message-ID: <xYBC7.1580$ib.998751@news1.sttln1.wa.home.com>

The usual mistake:

" Yes, in SQL and in application code I try to avoid using DB-specific  constructs. The DB-specific fine-tunig may come into place, if the database  is deployed on a server. Not changing SQL, of course. But using memory /  caching / ... techniques, which you probably know much better than I, in the
 database."

Databases differ from vendor to vendor. No they really do, they are not commodities. How they handle concurrency (some handle it well some poorly) , cursors (client side vs server side), and many many more. These are application architecture issues. I agree with Galen, you are designing an application to use the lowest common denominator and ignoring the dollars the customer spent on their database. My guess is you avoid using host variables. (which is going to make scalability go down the tubes and no DBA can fix.) I worked with someone who didn't think host variables made a difference. He was having a performance problem - 1,000 record processing benchmark was taking 26 minutes and pegging the server's CPU. We spent the couple of hours to convert to host variables and the same benchmark (same machine etc.) now took 6 minutes and averaged 10% CPU with 30% CPU usage peaks. (We also reused cursors and didn't close them so we only had to change the host variable values, rebind, reexecute.)

The whole system has to be done as a team. The people that wrote the database software usually put out a lot of application developer documentation (or they should) on how best to use their system, the application developer, the end user, the QA folks, the DBA, the Data Modeler (if your DBA doesn't do this) etc. are all needed to develop a high performance, scalable professional application.

Jim

"Michael G. Schneider" <mgs_at_mgs-software.de> wrote in message

news:9rdimi$l92$00$1_at_news.t-online.com...

> "Galen Boyer" <galenboyer_at_hotpop.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:ulmhxfray.fsf_at_verizon.net...
> > On Sat, 20 Oct 2001, mgs_at_mgs-software.de wrote:
> >
> > > in my opinion an application can be perfectly designed on the
> > > basis of SQL (either MS or Oracle) and the application code.
> >
> > So, you or your customer spends a boatload of money to buy a
> > worldclass piece of software called Oracle and you don't want to
> > take advantage of its power? You, instead, want to take
> > advantage of some programming language that you have chosen.

>

> Yes, in SQL and in application code I try to avoid using DB-specific
> constructs. The DB-specific fine-tunig may come into place, if the
database
> is deployed on a server. Not changing SQL, of course. But using memory /
> caching / ... techniques, which you probably know much better than I, in
the
> database.

>

> Not too often, but once in a while an application also has to run on two
> different database systems (probably Oracle/SQLServer) - or is ported from
> one to the other. Then having vendor specific details in the application
> will make this difficult.

>

> Michael G. Schneider

>
> Received on Sat Oct 27 2001 - 12:15:09 CDT