Is Oracle really so much faster than MS Sql

CillyMe

Everytime I spoke with other Sun/Java flavoured developer they sneered at M$ SQL Server as if it's not a real database server. Is Oracle really so much faster than SQL? I also heard Oracle has a more comprehensive set of reporting tools. Personally, I have no experience with Oracle...

Mike Dimmick

The current TPC-C[^] raw performance benchmarks suggest that Oracle on HP/UX on outlandish hardware (64-way Itanium2 1.5GHz, 512Gb of memory) does currently outperform SQL Server 2000 (64-bit) on the same outlandish hardware (look at the second and third rows, the first had 1024Gb of RAM). However, most of us are lucky to be using 512 megabytes rather than 512 gigabytes. Frankly, SQL Server usually performs well enough on almost any hardware. Oracle really requires massive amounts of memory - 9i couldn't create a database on our test system with 192Mb (taking 6 hours and then the client crashed), while SQL Server 2000 creates a new database in about 5 seconds on the same hardware. Basically, you need to decide what you're going to use your system for (transaction processing versus ad-hoc queries), decide what performance level you actually need (i.e. how many transactions per second you're planning to handle). The performance of your system will also depend very much on how you write your queries and implement your indexes. For most general purpose applications, SQL Server is fine.

CillyMe

Mike Dimmick wrote: Frankly, SQL Server usually performs well enough on almost any hardware. Oracle really requires massive amounts of memory - 9i couldn't create a database on our test system with 192Mb (taking 6 hours and then the client crashed), while SQL Server 2000 creates a new database in about 5 seconds on the same hardware. I looked at the URL you specified... SQL Server isn't doing so bad at all.. But I remember I read some performance reports from Oracle site. According to their report, SQL performance is just a small fraction of Oracle.. I didn't read into the details however.

Bill Priess

Mike Dimmick wrote: Frankly, SQL Server usually performs well enough on almost any hardware. Oracle really requires massive amounts of memory - 9i couldn't create a database on our test system with 192Mb (taking 6 hours and then the client crashed), while SQL Server 2000 creates a new database in about 5 seconds on the same hardware. Not to mention, SQL Server is organized in such a way as to make it easy for "non-sql" people to use. With the different flavors (MSDE, Standard, Developer, and Enterprise), you can really get just what you need without the tons of overhead that Oracle requires. Also, with Oracle, from around 7.0.4 and above, you basically need at least a week of classes just to figure out the whole Scott/Tiger thing and how to get the DB up and running. That does not include performance tuning, backups or how and why the data dictionary works. Mike Dimmick wrote: Basically, you need to decide what you're going to use your system for (transaction processing versus ad-hoc queries), decide what performance level you actually need (i.e. how many transactions per second you're planning to handle). The performance of your system will also depend very much on how you write your queries and implement your indexes. We did a lot of performance testing on both Oracle 9i and Sql Server 2K. We found that when it came to data warehousing (large queries, mostly static indexes and a lot of tables!), Oracle was best. When it came to more transactional queries, Sql Server was top notch. Plus, given that .NET is tailored to Sql Server (go figure!), there is an added performance boost... ;) Ok, enough of my rambling... :zzz: Bill P. Oakland, CA

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Matt Gullett

As others have said, it all depends on your available hardware and the type of DB you want to create. I have found SQL Server to be much easier to use (in general), easier to manage for most day-to-day taks, has better management tools and performs well on updates/deletes and good-enough on selects. Oracle has poorer management tools, but has many more configuration options readily accessible and performs better for querying, but unless configured to the Nth degree, has poor performance on inserts/updates/deletes. If you know how to configure Oracle, I think you can squeeze better performance out of it on an apples-for-apples hardware comparison. Also, Oracle IMHO is more scalable to multiple servers, especially in geographically seperated situations. Ultimately, I choose SQL Server because I just don't know how to configure all the options and SQL Server sets most things automatically and does a good enough job. About all you need to know specific to SQL server (beyond basic DB design) is how to use file groups. Also, the management tools for SQL Server are much better than the comporable Oracle tools.