Since SQL Server 2005, Microsoft has had an awesome database platform to run your business on. SQL Server just keeps getting better and better. With 2008 we are seeing some wonderful refinements. They have also overtaken Oracle on a number of fronts. I think Security is clearly an area where Microsoft SQL Server has leapfrog ahead of Oracle with the latest release. I also feel Business Intelligence is another strong point of SQL Server. I saw an article recently that caught my attention; I thought I would share with you.

This is from DEVX.  

by Ty Anderson

"Let the Truth Ring Forth"

Gather 'round fellow database disciples and let us examine the truth concerning Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008. Let us gather together today and consider that SQL Server 2008 is the database platform of choice; a database that meets your enterprise data and software application needs. I speak especially to those of you who believe in another database. To you especially, I ask that you move to the front row as I speak words of wisdom and truth to you today.

Apologies for the evangelical tone, but the truth is, so much of the discussion around which database to use seems rooted more in emotion and belief than in fact. So let me take the tact of presenting you with facts to make your database decision that much easier.

No doubt Oracle® was the first to bring a high-performing relational database to market. First-movers always have an advantage initially. But over the years, Microsoft has steadily improved SQL Server to the product it is today. A product with a robust feature set that can meet the needs of almost any set of requirements.

There are more than a few of you who doubt this claim. You may even hold to some of the most common misconceptions regarding SQL Server. Misconceptions that might have been true in the past, but are no longer based upon facts. Here is just a sample of the more common SQL Server myths:

·         Market Leadership: Oracle® receives a lot of attention as the leading database vendor. The reason for this is because they lead in terms of revenue produced. Given that a typical Oracle® license costs more than a SQL Server license, using revenue to measure market leadership can be misleading. A better yardstick might be the number of licenses sold as it sheds light into the actual number of installations.

·         Enterprise Readiness: The phrase "Enterprise-Readiness" can include many factors. In this case, I refer to the scalability and availability of a database. Regarding scalability, SQL Server has proven to be highly scalable as evidenced by the results of testing done by the Transaction Processing Performance Council Their results show SQL Server to dominate the council's TPC-E Benchmark that tests performance using a representative customer workload (i.e. complex database schemas, referential integrity, RAID, etc).[1] Also, SQL Server 2008 provides a rich feature set of "Always On" technologies to increase data availability. With enhanced database mirroring, failover clustering, peer-to-peer replication, and backup compression (to reduce back and restore times), you have a rich set of tools to help ensure data is always available.

·         Security: SQL Server has included role-based security, security auditing, security-event tracking, encryption (file and network), and more for several releases now. SQL Server 2008 goes further to include a security-policy management system. This system will allow you to create database security policies and then propagate them across all database servers. SQL Server also includes features to help secure data against privileged users (i.e. DBAs). This feature prevents privileged users from accessing sensitive data (i.e. credit card numbers) that would normally only be accessible via the applications that own the data.

·         Business Intelligence Analysis: Anyone who believes Microsoft is not a key vendor in Business Intelligence doesn't know the facts. Gartner placed Microsoft in the Leader Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms.[2] Microsoft's BI platform includes data warehousing capabilities, analytics, reporting, and score carding (to name only a few). Additionally, SQL Server BI is tightly interoperable with other Microsoft technologies like Microsoft Office and Visual Studio. This tight compatibility provides efficiencies when looking to customize BI-related offerings. All these features are part of Microsoft's base product offering. Oracle®, on the other hand, does not include BI features in their base product; opting instead to offer BI features as a separate add-on product.

There is a lot more to this article. click here to see the rest....

Top 5 Reasons to Adopt SQL Server 2008

One of my favorite new features is the abilty to Govern resources. You can decide how much CPU, etc a particular resource is given. This lends itself to environments that want to do server consolation. A way to save money and yes even energy in todays "GO Green" world.  

Posted by Michael Corey

www.ntirety.com