Jumping on the Open Source DB Bandwagon
Although I recently wrote about the open source DBMS market in this blog, I thought it would be worthwhile to re-visit this topic in the light of recent news. I believe that one of the biggest factors in the long-term success (or lack thereof) of the open source DBMS market is the quality of technical support.
Let's face it, as IT professionals that manage database systems on a daily basis I'd venture to guess that not one of us would want to be faced with having to administer a large-scale database implementation without the availability of high quality, 24/7 technical support. When things "go bump in the night" with your DBMS it is no small consolation that there is a large vendor with a capable support staff just a phone call away to help you out. Of course, how good you actually feel depends a good deal on who will be answering that phone. Sometimes it might seem like
Now with open source the software is basically stitched together by programmers throughout the world. This is good because the software benefits from the technical acumen of perhaps millions of technicians, unbounded by company allegiance. Of course, these same programmers are not going to support the software. This is where the trouble can arise.
Of course, most open source products are backed by companies offering technical support packages - and this is good. And other commercial software vendors are looking to the open source market as a means to bolster revenue by offering services. One such recent announcement is that Novell will be offering services to support MySQL customers. This alliance between Nocell and MySQL differs from many of these industry announcements in that it seems like a good partnership for both companies. MySQL should benefit by takming advantage of opportunities in the larger enterprises that currently do business with Novell; and Novell should benefit by expanding their offerings to include more database-related services and by basking in the glow of the currently "hot" open source market.
I would expect that we will continue to see more partnerships of this nature in the future.
In other news, EnterpriseDB Corp. announced the release of the final version of its PostgreSQL-based DBMS. EnterpriseDB had previously released a beta version of its DBMS. And the company further announced that it had hired several highly regarded PostgreSQL developers: David Cramer (Java API), Jonah Harris (Oracle compatibility), and Alvaro Herrera (two-phase commit). These hires bring additional expertise and marketability to EnterpriseDB.
All in all, it was a busy week for open source DBMS...
© 2005, Mullins Consulting, Inc.
I performed an extensive analyis on the leading open source database and found although that although it worked as advertised, I was NOT impressed with its features and functionality. I was also concerned about the level of support offered.
Here's my issue:
Product functionality is a key evaluation point when comparing database management systems. As information technology specialists, it is our responsibility to provide the greatest functionality at the lowest cost to our customers. The bottom line is - the more options and features the database provides, the easier it is to implement applications and the more flexibility it provides to DBAs, developers and end-users. You may not be currently interested in a particular feature, but future application requirements can NOT be predicted! It is important to have as many choices as possible when designing new applications. The more solutions the database inherently provides, the more cost effective it becomes. These integrated features allow technical personnel to solve business problems without the additional costs of writing custom code and/or integrating multiple vendor solutions. If you were going to standardize on one database for your organization to reduce support costs, would you standardize on one that provides a low level of features and functionality or a high level?
Potential buyers must ask themselves the following question: "Will it be easier for open source databases to add functionality while retaining ease of use, or will it be easier for Oracle, IBM and Microsoft to make their products easier to use while retaining their high level of functionality?"
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