Database Platform Preference

[Paulonius]

I am in the process of having a development project scoped and will have to decide what database my system will use.  The portal/database will have to accept data input from a variety of sources as my clients will be uploading information from different platforms.  I anticipate that my database managment system will need to be able to effectively translate information coming from Oracle, Linux and SQL.  Developing a process that does this well will be an important part of the project. 

I wonder if anyone can express a preference for what my database should be built in.

I also wonder if anyone can give me some questions that I ought to be asking developers to screen the hacks from the pros.  I can't afford a false start with the wrong developer.

Thanks!

-P

[UOMaddog]

I've always been partial to the original MS SQL. Simply because they wrote the language and with the latest version (SQL Server 2008) it is blazing fast. MySQL is your best bet if you need cheap (FREE) database solution.

As for questions, it's really difficult to come up with ones that would sort the good from the bad. Honestly, I've always believed that work ethic and personality filtering will yield better results than who's the "best" or "brightest". Bright lights shine short! (There's a motto for ya)

[Crome969]

I am in the process of having a development project scoped and will have to decide what database my system will use.  The portal/database will have to accept data input from a variety of sources as my clients will be uploading information from different platforms.  I anticipate that my database managment system will need to be able to effectively translate information coming from Oracle, Linux and SQL.  Developing a process that does this well will be an important part of the project. 

I wonder if anyone can express a preference for what my database should be built in.

I also wonder if anyone can give me some questions that I ought to be asking developers to screen the hacks from the pros.  I can't afford a false start with the wrong developer.

Thanks!

-P

In our Company we are using MS SQL 2008 R2 Express for our Software.When i remind, its free for use, a little bit restricted but works good at our kind of work.
We are Platin Seller for an ERP-Software and Addon Development.
From the other SQL Software tools i dont have any clue, to be honest...

[Endless Night]

IBM invented SQL in the 1970s  and it now runs across all platforms.  So an SQL database hosted on some platform is your best bet for universal access.  

ps Oracle is a commercially available SQL system thats been around since the 80's

So what SQL platform and package become the question.  That answer should come from the number of simultaneous connections, volume of data and other factors from your project and of course what your willin to pay.

[Paulonius]

I am hearing the same from the developers I am interviewing: SQL or Oracle, Oracle costs more.  It looks like I am going to do hosted servers for my clients with an API system of scripts and templates to tanslate the incoming data. I have interviewed four developers in the last two days, its really interesting how divergent their experience and expertise.  Starting to be able to tell who knows what they are talking about and who knows how to build websites and not much else...   

[12TimesOver]

As others have already said, it depends greatly on your project - how will it be accessed? By who? How many? What will it do?

I'm a MS SQL 7, 2000, and 2005 DBA (I've pulled back from DBA duties at work over the last two years so haven't had a chance to play with 2008 yet) and MS implementation of SQL is just as fine as anyone else's but it's certainly not cheap (unless you compare it to Oracle). Although you can run a free version of MS SQL as pointed out already, it does have limitations. However, many great applications are out there running on this.

As for the DB accepting input from a variety of sources, that shouldn't matter. It's the client front-end that matters. Transact SQL is Transact SQL no matter what product is accepting an UPDATE or SELECT statement. On the other hand, your front-end may have to accomodate a variety of possible configurations.

Is the client front-end going to be web based? If so, where will it be hosted? In the case of a web-app you don't need to think as much about the end-users as long as they are using a browser that you support. Or, is this something you are developing that other people or companies will install and run on their own systems? If so you want to chose something inexpensive or something they may already own - or even better, something you can package with your product like MS SQL Express.

Anyhow, I gotta get back to work...

X

[TrailMyx]

Around here we use Postgresql. 

http://www.postgresql.org/

[Paulonius]

Thanks for the post 12, I was hoping to lure you into a response. I am going to be hosting a database for each suscriber that is web-accessed by a few administrators.  The database is going to update from subscriber systems daily, and will update from the subscriber's user apps in real time. I anticipate that I will be accepting data uploads to the hosted databases from every conceivable system, hopefully in templates that we build.