[plug] MySQL versus NT SQL Server

[Leon Brooks]

Phillip Steege wrote:
> I have been trying to convince our IT department to look at MySQL as a
> viable alternative to NT SQL Server.

It's not. MySQL is missing some pieces; in particular, it has no
transaction processing (COMMIT/ROLLBACK and friends) and from reading
the documentation, the authors don't understand the need for it and
won't include it anytime soon.

PostGreSQL is much, much better in the SQL department (especially
release 7.0), but the ODBC may not be up to scratch. Expect this to be
thoroughly fixed Real Soon Now, since the "background" work in
preparation for release 7.1 removes many of the remaining limitations,
the ODBC is being worked on too, and besides that the PostGreSQL team
are having $US25,000,000 (yep, that's the right number of zeroes) spent
on them. At least.

> Currently we have an ALR8200 server running NT 4.0.  Our engineers use
> Access databases on NT workstations and want to have these databases served.

> I recommended going to a Linux OS and MySQL mostly for price difference, but
> I would also like to show performance improvements in my pitch to managment.
> Does anyone know of any web documents showing comparison performance studies
> of MySQL versus NT SQL server?

If you want startling performace, try Kx (http://www.kx.com/); it's used
by some significant names in the financial realm, but sadly isn't open
source.

Interbase is at a comparable level of development to PostGreSQL, and
seems to be trying really, really hard to become Open Source too.

MS-SQL hasn't been that bad since it was rewritten completely from the
ground up not so long ago. The bummer is that it it needs to be run
under NT. If that server has _any_ wired network connectivity, your
company's databases are at risk - moreso if the other boxes on the wire
are Windows bozes.

-- 
Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.