Oracle Vs. Microsoft Sql Server: Why Oracle is the Preferred Database Platform

Between Microsoft Sql Server and Oracle, one would expect Sql Server to be the leader in the database world and the preferred platform for most companies.

Running a Sql server database costs much less than running an Oracle database. Licensing fees run as little as one tenth the fees for Oracle. A company running its databases on Sql Server platform spends tens of thousands in software costs per year compared to a few million for running Oracle. Sql server databases are also very friendly, simple to install and easy to administer.

Sql Server database administrators are relatively inexpensive, costing the company only 90k to 110k in salary per employee per year. Oracle database administrators, however, are quite expensive costing the company 110k to 200k in salary per employee per year. And even then, high quality Oracle database administrators can be difficult to find.

Yet year after year, despite its huge costs and complexity, Oracle continues to lead the database world, making more money than Microsoft. Here's a look at why an increasing number of customers choose Oracle as their database platform.

Oracle vs. Microsoft Sql Server: Performance

Sql Server is quite simple and easy to administer, and it works just fine for databases that are less than a few hundred gigabytes. Yet once the database grows beyond that, performance degradation starts to occur.

Itt is quite common, on the other hand, to run Terabyte-sized Oracle databases without performance issues. Unlike Sql Server, Oracle offers hundreds of database-level tuning options and features to improve performance. One example is a feature called Real Application Clusters (or RAC). This feature allows multiple servers to operate concurrently on the same database, thereby giving more processing power to the company's application.

In short, Oracle supports "active-active" clustering, while Sql Server doesn't. When it comes to large databases, this is just one of the many features making Oracle the clear winner in terms of performance..

Oracle vs. Microsoft Sql Server: Scalability

Sql Server only supports vertical scalability. The only way to scale a system built on sql server technology is to add more memory and CPU to the single server hosting the database. Even then, there is threshold beyond which vertical scalability doesn't provide any benefits.

Oracle, on the other hand, supports both horizontal and vertical scalability. Like Sql Server, one could scale a system built on Oracle by adding more memory and CPU to the single server hosting the database.

Yet once a threshold is hit beyond which no gain could be made by adding memory and CPU to the single server, Oracle users have the option to upgrade to Oracle Real Application Cluster technology, and have multiple small servers work as "active-active" clusters on the same database. One could add new servers to the Oracle Real Application Cluster database as necessary, providing extreme scalability.

Oracle vs. Microsoft Sql Server: Choice of OS Platform

Sql Server is limited to the Microsoft Windows operating system and will not work on any flavor of Unix operating systems. This puts Sql Server at a disadvantage because the Microsoft Windows operating system is prone to crashes while all flavors of Unix operating system are considered more stable and reliable.

Oracle, on the other hand, can work on Microsoft Windows, or any flavor of Unix operating systems, making it a true enterprise solution.

Given Oracle's capacity to run on large databases, its many performance improvement features, its vertical and horizontal scalability, and its capacity to function on both MS Windows or any flavor of Unix, it's easy to see why more companies are choosing Oracle over Sql Server.