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Open Source vs. the Database Vendors

Posted by Hemos on Mon Feb 06, 2006 11:29 AM
from the the-battle-is-joined dept.
Databases Programming Software Businesses IT
bhmit1 writes "BusinessWeek has another spread on open source this week. Among them is an article about open source vs. the database vendors which focused on how businesses are looking to save money with open source (rather than using the source to innovate). From the article: "The databases work fine, but as data volume grows, so do the checks to Oracle, IBM, or Microsoft. Many users aren't clamoring for more features, and some don't even use the bells and whistles they already paid for. They would happily trade some to get their hands on the source code and a better deal." Disclaimer: that quote came from Sony."
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  • Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2006, @11:33AM (#14651277)
    ... which focused on how businesses are looking to save money with open source (rather than using the source to innovate).

    Duh. Isn't that the #1 draw for the majority of OSS users out there? Sure there are some that are in it for the politics and others who actually try to contribute, but let's face it, the majority of people use it because it's free (as in beer).

    • Re:Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hey! (33014) on Monday February 06 2006, @11:45AM (#14651369) Homepage Journal
      It's certainly the only reason businesses choose OSS, or proprietary software. Net present value of TCO over the planning horizon.

      Until now, the free databases lacked accessibility for "drive by" business users. You don't have time to explore every option, even if it might lead to a better decision. Install Unix to check this thing out? Not today thank you.

      MySQL as it now stands is probably the simplest real RDBMS for the casual shopper. It's just as easy as MS SQL server, and MS is the only vendor who understands the importance of the casual shopper. Postgres is not far behind.

      • Re:Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)

        by IANAAC (692242) on Monday February 06 2006, @11:51AM (#14651413)
        MySQL as it now stands is probably the simplest real RDBMS for the casual shopper. It's just as easy as MS SQL server, and MS is the only vendor who understands the importance of the casual shopper. Postgres is not far behind.

        Actually, have you tried installing the latest "light" versions of boh Oracle and DB2? They're dead simple to install and administer. Not to mention writing the actual apps. They now have pretty much drag-n-drop GUIs for app creation. I think most vendors are now realizing the importance of this group of buyers.

        • Well, yes, they're getting there by process of imitation.

          But they still aren't there yet. For example, try to figure out how to buy the mobile version of DB2. Or exactly which Oracle license you need.

          By contrast, under MySQL things couldn't be simpler for users. Developers just have to grasp the dual licensing scheme, which isn't asking much.
          • Well, yes, they're getting there by process of imitation.

            Who are they imitating? Certainly not the MySQL folks, and certainly not for drag-n-drop db creation and development. To my knowledge, there is nothing comparable in the opensource world to these two companies' development products. I truly would love to see something similar (particularly for Postgresql), but to date I've not found anything.

      • This is a really good argument for letting developers decide the technology rather than managers. Personally I would generally choose Postgres because I like the way it works and I have a good knowledge of it. MySQL would be up there on my list as well. I've used SQL Server (and just about all the other commercial offerings) and found it to be good but over complex for a lot of applications. Any developer that is writting detabase driven apps should be at least familiar with most commercial databases and Po

      • MySQL as it now stands is probably the simplest real RDBMS for the casual shopper.

        Actually, easy installation and great out-of-the-box performance has always been a hallmark of SQL Anywhere [sybase.com]. Feel free to download the free developer edition [sybase.com] yourself and see. (Yes, there are Linux and Unix versions available, not just Windows.)

        Eric
        Redscowl Bluesingsky [cluelessabout.com]

    • nope

      $0 is nice but I bought my first copy of Slackware [slackware.com] long before I could download it, I even had to copy it to (I think 22) floppies from cdrom so I could install it.

      And even after I have downloaded them, I've paid for FreeBSD [freebsd.org], plan9 [bell-labs.com] and Inferno [vitanuova.com].

      Free as in Freedom is more important than you give it credit for.

      Just one business case is that one can mitigate risk by having multiple OS vendors to choose from. I know that if my chosen OS goes kaput or gets litigated out of existence then I won't go with it. A
    • See here [informit.com] and here [informit.com]. The bottom line is, of course, the most important incentive for a business but the FSF's four freedoms can each contribute to that final total. For many businesses the freedom from vendor lock-in is worth more than the zero purchase-price.

    • depends (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stoolpigeon (454276) * <bittercode@gmail> on Monday February 06 2006, @11:59AM (#14651492) Homepage Journal
      I think it depends upon the scale. There are probably many small users out there looking at OSS databases to save money on licensing. And these types will be very happy to jump on board to a 'free' proprietary product. But there are some large companies with the resources and the desire to leverage access to the source code. A good example that comes immediately to my mind is Fujitsu's involvment with PostgreSQL.
  • In my work experience, I have concluded that the vast majority of "big name" database users vastly underutilize the features that the big bucks pay for. Many companies that generally only need a step up from MS Access but get sucked into Oracle or DB2 thinking that's the logical next step.

    In addition, many database users don't have a realistic understanding of what constitutes a lot of data. I've met quite a few people that think a 10k row database is huge, and anything in the 1 million record range is absolutely gargantuan! To me, anything less than 1 million records is downright tiny. Seriously, many of these users don't need an "enterprise" RDBMS for scalability reasons, which is what leads many customers to open their wallets. Something like Postgres or MySQL would be more than adequate for their needs.

    That is not to say there are not users who need the enterprise features, but it amazes me the amount of money that is dumped into features that most small to medium size deployments don't even use.

    It is very educational to see how Oracle for example is used in real world deployments. Open source aside, I have seen many where the user may have been better served by just using a properly setup MS Access or FileMaker database!

    -Pete
    • Well large is subjective. To a small company 10k of data is large. And when someones sells their apps for Large Database they jump on it because their database is big for them. Even though they would be better off with the smaller Database server because the algorithms are based for processing smaller values.

    • I have concluded that the vast majority of "big name" database users vastly underutilize the features that the big bucks pay for.

      Has anybody else encountered projects for database-driven websites where the script monkeys want to use the database like text file system accessed with SQL, and do all of the logic in script on the web server? I suspect that people understand procedural code most readily, and despise thinking in the set-theoretical terms of SQL. I used to be that way, until I started realizing

    • It's the data... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Colin Smith (2679) on Monday February 06 2006, @11:55AM (#14651451)
      The user says "This is vital". IT staff start adding zeros to the price tag of the application. Seriously nobody in the IT dept is ever going to suggest something like mysql or postgresql for something like the corporate accounts or other financial transaction backends because people like IBM and Oracle guarantee that when the power goes out, the transaction completed, or it didn't happen at all.

      And if you've paid for Oracle/DB2 and you're training your staff on and using Oracle/DB2 anyway then it doesn't make a load of sense to introduce different RDBMS systems that your DBAs and administrators are completely unfamiliar with, especially when you've got that Oracle box sitting there underutilised.

      Ultimately you're right, 95% of apps could be served perfectly well by mysql, postgresql, msaccess, filemaker etc. Corporate IT depts should really create two categories of RDBMS systems, vital and casual. The vital ones being the core business operations and casual being everything else.

       

      • I've been fighting to get this done. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Monday February 06 2006, @12:35PM (#14651899)
        The user says "This is vital". IT staff start adding zeros to the price tag of the application.
        Yep. And it is up to the requesting user to justify spending that money to the CFO.

        It is not IT's job. IT just gives everyone the pricing based upon how many 9's of availablility you want and the database/server licenses.

        If the user balks at that, the database can be put on the far less expensive PostgreSQL/mySQL server.

        The downside is that the database people need to become familiar with TWO different databases (or more depending upon the other apps).

        The upside is that the company saves a LOT of money in licenses and such.
      • because people like IBM and Oracle guarantee that when the power goes out, the transaction completed, or it didn't happen at all.

        What kind of guarantees do they actually provide? For all of Oracle, IBM, and PostgreSQL the likelihood of a hardware error is far greater than the likelihood of a software error that leaves the database inconsistent.

        So what, will Oracle pay you money if a software failure occurs? What about a hardware failure?

        From a technical standpoint, PostgreSQL is probably more trustworthy wh
              • There are lots of companies offering support for PostgreSQL. If you need it to be a "big, enterprise-class" company, how about (as one example) Sun Microsystems, which offers 24/7 postgresql support?
      • The user says "This is vital". IT staff start adding zeros to the price tag of the application. Seriously nobody in the IT dept is ever going to suggest something like mysql or postgresql for something like the corporate accounts or other financial transaction backends because people like IBM and Oracle guarantee that when the power goes out, the transaction completed, or it didn't happen at all.

        you are very wrong. MANY companies depend on MySQL in the ways you mention and by spending the cash you saved in
    • Sometimes, it is an attempt to get the greater reliability that is frequently attributed to the "big" systems. Justified or not, RDBMS like Oracle or DB2 have a reputation of being less prone to crashing or data loss.
      This said, I would probably go for somthing like Postgre or Firebird myself. But NOT Access, I've heard from our service department that the Access databases of a certain device tend to crash when they grow beyond 1 GByte.

    • I agree 100%. I have worked on plenty of development jobs where management wanted to use SQL Server (normally) or another big name database because they thought they had a lot of data. Typically we were storing a few hundred products and maybe 10000 orders. I voiced the opinion that that wasn't much data and an OSS database such as Postgres or MySQL would easily handle it. I've never recieved such dirty looks. I think the managers want the prestiege of using a "real" database.

      • You misspelled MS Foxpro

        You misspelled "hell no".

        The problem with FoxPro is that people come to depend on it, and start building their internal applications around it without realizing that it doesn't scale.

        I don't mean that it doesn't scale well, but that it simply doesn't scale at all. Since it's not a database, but a single-threaded client app that reads and writes files off a fileserver instead of making remote queries, doubling the number of users doubles the amount of network bandwidth you have

  • Not everyone cares about Coding... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer (103300) * on Monday February 06 2006, @11:34AM (#14651282)
    It may surprise you but most people who use open source applications do not change the code. Even the ones who know how too, don't. Why, because they don't have the time. They download it try it, if it does what they need they use it, if not then they try an other product, if they cannot find an Open Source tool that does the job then they see if there is a commercial one that does. Programming takes time, even an open source application, time costs money, so if paying 2k for MS SQL Server vs. 3 weeks of development, to get the functionality they need they will just get MS SQL and they will save money. Plus this time could be used by the programmers to create business critical code (Which earns $$$), vs. IT Infrastructure code (which costs $$$, but may save $$$$ in the future). As some of your open source developers may or may not realize your cool feature may not be used by anyone buy yourself. Heck I have a hard time to get people to used Stored Procedures in their SQL, needless to say trying to get them to use the more advanced features.

      • Stored procedures are BAD BAD BAD...

        So if you have an personnel database and your app/database must handle job changes, and those job changes consist roughly of:

        1. taking the person out of the current job ;
        2. adding a "job history" row for the old job ;
        3. putting the person into the new job.

        Are you sincerly claiming that a stored procedure is not appropriate in this case? Excepting a pathologically poor stored procedure implementation, your "do it in the app server" approach if anything puts the same lo

      • Re:Not everyone cares about Coding... (Score:4, Informative)

        by GebsBeard (665887) on Monday February 06 2006, @12:38PM (#14651930)
        That this gets modded insightful is an embarrassment. Every DBA worth two shakes of a dead rats ass can tell you putting stored procedures in the DB cuts down on network traffic and improves application responsiveness. Every time a query is passed across the network it has to be compiled to p-code. Multiply that by X users and the system grinds to a halt. Ease of implementation and clarity also shoot through the roof with proper use of stored procedures. And the scalability problems you speak of don't exist, since you can instance your database just like your app server.

        The Slashdot hive mind may not like the idea of being tied to a particular database or vendor but in the Real World businesses choose their databases carefully and stick with them for a long time, often forever. With this in mind you exploit every single option available when programming and stored procedures along with proper filesystem layout, column indexing and schema design are key to a high performance database.

      • Stored procedures are BAD BAD BAD, I'm glad you have a hard time promoting those. Why? ... So maybe it takes twice as long on the application servers to do what your stored procedure do - but you have a dozend application servers running and only one database

        There are a few classic examples of situations in which SPs aren't just not BAD, but they've very GOOD. One of the classics is anything that depends on aggregating tons of data, especially in some kind of a tight loop. Network bandwidth is not the iss

  • Can't hear you... la-la-la (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Billosaur (927319) * <wgrotherNO@SPAMoptonline.net> on Monday February 06 2006, @11:41AM (#14651337) Journal
    The wild card in all of this will be whether big, successful tech companies get behind the upstarts. Linux hit prime time only when IBM, Oracle, and others got behind it, rewriting their software to make it compatible and convincing worried CIOs that it was robust and reliable enough to entrust their business to it.

    A company such as SAP (SAP) could be pivotal. The German software giant is locked in an applications war with Oracle, but the bulk of companies running SAP applications run them on Oracle databases. So even when SAP wins an application deal, it's often making money for its archrival. That doesn't sit well with ultracompetitive SAP, which already has a burgeoning partnership with MySQL. Closer ties there could mean more SAP applications on MySQL databases. Elsewhere, Red Hat (RHAT) has endorsed both MySQL and Postgres, as did Sun Microsystems (SUNW) last November.

    So Oracle has now become Microsoft, pretty much resting on its laurels and claiming that its users are more than happy with them, while all-the-while, their users are shopping for cheaper and better solutions. If SAP were to out-and-out declare they like MySQL better and shift most of their DB usage there, Oracle would have a very large amount of egg on their face.

    Let's face it: when you become the dominant leader of your industry, you tend to forget what got you there and you take it for granted you will always be there. I've used Oracle, MySQL, and Sybase, and I find the latter two to be a lot easier to work with than Oracle. Oracle is trading solid dependability for tricks and gimmicks, and in the end, no one wants to pay that kind of money for things they don't need or won't use.

    • But aren't you forgetting about this: http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/news/article_ 968.html [mysql.com] (Oracle buys the maker of Innobase - a popular backend to MySql)
    • and in the end, no one wants to pay that kind of money for things they don't need or won't use.

      Exactly. If you don't *need* Oracle, don't use it. On the other hand; If your database is the life blood of your business and downtime can cost your business it's life. You would be a fool not to use it.

      Oracle is what it is and you pay for what it is. I use a mix of many different databases, but our most critical and complexed applications run Oracle. Why? Because the only way you will lose data in a Oracle

  • Open Source + the Database Vendors (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Monday February 06 2006, @11:42AM (#14651352) Homepage Journal
    I'd love to develop my apps with Postgres, then deploy to Oracle or DB2 with an automated tool. If Oracle or IBM distributed a free (beer) one, I'd include it in my project plans. And if there were an open source tool for comparing performance of my app on each of those databases in real tests, I'd be more likely to make the switch - provided the tests showed an advantage.

  • Hands on source code (Score:5, Insightful)

    by five18pm (763804) on Monday February 06 2006, @11:46AM (#14651378)
    From the article: They would happily trade some to get their hands on the source code and a better deal.

    How many are there who would actually look at the source code of a database, work on it rather than develop new applications based on it? If database A works, then they are going to stick with database A until conditions change drastically. It hasn't happened now and doesn't seem like it will happen in the near future.

    • Re:Hands on source code (Score:4, Interesting)

      by slim (1652) <john@nospAM.hartnup.net> on Monday February 06 2006, @12:04PM (#14651533) Homepage
      From the article: "They would happily trade some to get their hands on the source code and a better deal."

      How many are there who would actually look at the source code of a database, work on it rather than develop new applications based on it?

      Let me rephrase the excerpt from the article:
      "Some users would happy forego certain features present in commercial databases if (1) it means reduced cost and (2) you access to the source code."

      Why stick with expensive Oracle or DB2 if PostgreSQL does the job reliably enough and it's free? That's a no brainer.

      I think you're asking, "why even look at the code if it's working?". Absolutely right. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

      But, if there's a feature missing that you require, then for certain businesses -- not all -- it may well make sense to add code yourself. A tech company may underutilised coders on the payroll: it may be cheaper to get them to code and support that feature than it is to sack them.

      A large corporation (Sony, 3M, etc.) might need to deploy that feature in hundreds of places. Paying someone to code it gives them a lot of bang for the buck.


      If database A works, then they are going to stick with database A until conditions change drastically. It hasn't happened now and doesn't seem like it will happen in the near future.


      Successful businesses always look to reduce costs. If database A works, database B is $10,000 per year cheaper to license and support, the migration will cost $20,000 and you expect to continue using the system for over 2 years, then (cashflow allowing) it's a no-brainer to move. The only thing stopping you would be lack of business agility.
    • Something I have found important is that there are some who would actually look at the source code of a database, work on it rather than develop new applications based on it.

    • How many are there who would actually look at the source code of a database, work on it rather than develop new applications based on it?

      We used Oracle extensively at my first .com job many years ago. I remember one incident where we would repeatedly (and erroneausly, if my memory serves me correctly) get an Oracle error numer that didn't map to any meaningful description in the Oracle docs. ("Undefined Internal Error", i believe was the text description we got.)

      We spent months trying to get an answer from
  • I think most businesses crave accountability & reliability more than anything.

    I'd be more comfortable running a system running a vendor dbms rather than an Open Source implementation - just because when shit hits the fan (which it invariably does), at least there's ultimately someone responsible for it.

    Don't get me wrong; we run mySql for all small-midsize operations, but the bigger systems run Oracle purely because of this reason.

    • Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)

      by slim (1652)
      I'd be more comfortable running a system running a vendor dbms rather than an Open Source implementation - just because when shit hits the fan (which it invariably does), at least there's ultimately someone responsible for it.

      But MySQL is a vendor DBMS if you want it to be. You can buy the product and support from MySQL.com [mysql.com].

      However, even if we invent a hypothetical Open Source product where paid support isn't available, there are circumstances where I get really fed up of the "we can't use that, what if it

  • Short Term Gain Is KING! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf (665390) on Monday February 06 2006, @12:04PM (#14651525) Homepage
    which focused on how businesses are looking to save money with open source (rather than using the source to innovate)

    This is a surprise? Maybe "back in the day" innovation was a significant part of the average business plan in the United States, but those days are long gone in today's business world where short-term financial gain is the only objective. Realistically, the only innovation going on today it that which is related to military use. Sad, really.

  • MySQL at $40 million per year. And that's fine. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats (122034) on Monday February 06 2006, @01:31PM (#14652567) Homepage
    So MySQL generates only $40 million in revenue per year. That's OK. That's enough for perhaps 400 people. How many programmers do you really want working on a database? Beyond 50 or so, they'll probably add more bugs than they fix. And they'll be tempted to put stuff in the database that shouldn't be there.

    Of course, this is a problem for Oracle. Building Larry Ellison's house cost far more than MySQL generates in profit. I drive by the place all the time. Under construction, it looked like a mall. Oracle stock dropped from $50 to $12 while the house project was underway.

  • The open-source RDBMSs *are* catching up to the closed-source databases, but there is still plenty of work to be done. One area in particular is support for the XA protocol for 2PC.

    Both of the "big two" (MySQL & PostgreSQL) advertise XA support, but neither has complete support; as both fail to support suspend/resume. And while this might seem like a minor point, XA support is an absolute must if you want to do something like incorporate a database write and something like a JMS message into one transaction. Currently you can't do that with, for example, JBoss and PostgreSQL, as JBoss' transaction manager tries to do a suspend at some point in the process, resulting in an exception from the PostgreSQL JDBC driver. (As an aside: I haven't researched yet whether or not this is correct behavior by the TM, so this particular example might not be a problem with a different app server).

    Clearly not everybody needs this level of functionality.. but for those who do, it's critical. By way of example - imagine an enterprise CRM system which uses JMS to federate data across systems by publishing events to a Topic when customer records are modified. You really need ACID compliance for both the database write and the message publish, or you get inconsistent data which is BAD, BAD, BAD. Yes, yes, I know there are ways you *could* get around this without using XA, but the point is that this is what XA is for and this is the direct, obvious, normal way to approach the problem. And by and large, the open-source databases just aren't there yet with the needed functionality.

    That said, I believe they will get there in time. And in fairness, there may be a open-source database (possibly Ingres or Firebird) which does have full XA compliance, I haven't investigated them all in detial.

  • Support (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CaptainTux (658655) on Monday February 06 2006, @04:07PM (#14654145) Homepage Journal
    I keep reading that the main reason companies don't switch from closed to open software is because there are no support options available beyond internet forums, IRC chats, and mailing lists. Have any of you people making these claims actually investigated what support options are available for some of the software you use?

    Granted some non-widely used software will only offer forums, chat, and lists as support options. But most major open source packages (including MySQL) does have professional level support available. Some open source companies (like MySQL and RedHat) offer commercial support themselves directly to the customer. Other packages have vibrant support communities that have sprung up around them and even companies that are quite successful offering commercial level support for several open source packages.

    Saying that the reason people don't switch to open source software is because there is no support available is simply not true. It might have been true two or three years ago but not anymore. Take some time and investigate your options and you'll find there's a lot more available out there than you might think.

    • Re:I like my 3 CD DB downloads from oracle (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hey! (33014) on Monday February 06 2006, @11:40AM (#14651322) Homepage Journal
      Do you know what hell is?

      Hell is having a product you have to explain to the customer.

      Customers don't understand databases, so they're not likely to understand the difference between MySQL and Oracle. And, ironically, that might mean MySQL is where they ought to be. This isn't to disparage MySQL at all, but I'm just saying you can't explain the difference between MySQL and Oracle, you shouldn't pay the difference.

      You may or may not pay for your lack of knowledge later.

      • This is usually only the case when the person buying the product isn't the person using the product. Granted this seems to happen more than it should, but it shouldn't. Why do people have such a problem admitting that they don't know something, and just asking the people who do know.
      • How very true. I have a consulting gig I'm working on that was resistant as all hell to not using MS database solutions.

        They were resistant until I started with software costs. Linux distro - free. MySQL - free. MS Windows Server 2003 75 cal - $15,500, MS SQL 2005 75 user was close to $20,000.

        Add my $7,000 development fee to that and they'd have paid $42,500 vs just the $7,000. Big difference as all they're paying for here is IP and I hand off all source and notes when the project is over. Yes, I own
    • When people pay for a product (or get one that is sopposed to be buisness class) they want a app that looks impressive on their bookshelf. A huge box filled with CDs. Any App work 10k has to have at least 10 CDs of data. When I was a kid running a BBS I saved up to buy Desqview for DOS. The app cost me $200 many months of chores. When I got it and took it out of the box I had a single 3 1/2 floppy. It woked but needless to say I felt a little disapointed. Espectially with some of the games I had took 6 o

    • Sure it is (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Just Some Guy (3352) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Monday February 06 2006, @04:50PM (#14654548) Homepage Journal
      No Support - what happens if your developers run into an issue with the product or your production system goes offline. Who do you call for support?

      Whoever you paid for your commercial MySQL [mysql.com] or PostgreSQL [postgresql.org] support contract, of course.

      There are many Oracle, SQL Server and DB2 specialists on the market.

      So your contention is that a high rate of turnover in the support of those applications is good?

      As an early adopter of software you take on the risk while others (including competitors) learn from your mistakes.

      MySQL and PostgreSQL were publically released 11 and 17 years ago, respectively. If that's your idea of "early adopter", then may I also suggest other hip new technologies you might wish to investigate, such as TCP/IP, VGA graphics, and transistor-based memory?

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