ORACLE, SQL HIGHLIGHT VEGAS TRADE SHOW
At this year's Comdex trade show in Las Vegas in mid-November, a title fight is expected between database software heavyweights. Oracle 8i and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 -- both long-awaited products -- are slated for release at Comdex, and the two products take radically different approaches to managing data.
Oracle 8i has been grabbing headlines for its positioning as an uber-database, designed to manage over 150 different types of data formats via a new file system that one might normally expect to find in an operating system. SQL Server, on the other hand, is going with the focused approach, eschewing support for herds of new file formats in favor of optimized performance and stability.
In addition to Oracle 8i's ambitious new file system, the product has a Java server, full Web server functionality, and more features similar to those of an operating system features. "The world's first Java server is built right into Oracle 8i," says Oracle chief Larry Ellison. "Everything-user interface, program logic, data, Web server-everything is in the database. Oracle 8i transforms the role of the database from back-end data server for applications to a full-function Internet-based information management platform. In fact, Oracle 8i competes more against Windows NT than it does against SQL Server 7."
The database-resident Java Virtual Machine within Oracle 8i-for storing and executing Java code on a server-is complemented by a native Java compiler and a feature called Internet File System (IFS), which lets you store, query, and manage relational and non relational data. IFS can store 164 data types (from spreadsheets to Web pages, e-mail, and graphics). Oracle's new file system is the component that makes the database competitive with operating systems.
But Tom Kreyche, product manager for SQL Server at Microsoft, says, "We don't agree at all with Oracle's philosophy. Oracle 8i is essentially a recycled version of the idea of a universal server, which hasn't worked before, as database players such as Informix have learned. Let's wait and see how much performance degradation Oracle 8i brings."
"How much work does an enterprise have to do to tune file systems for performance now, whether we're talking about NT, NetWare, or anything else?" asks Kreyche. "Oracle 8i may confuse and alienate database administrators seeking performance and stability. We're looking to NT, Index Server technology, middleware, and other products to efficiently handle much of what Oracle is trying to do directly within the database. That way businesses can pick or build the best tools for complementing the database."
The attraction of a Java-centric, universal server product that could perform well and provide one-stop shopping for database, file management, and application-hosting features is easy to understand. Oracle's Ellison has said that he foresees huge economic advantages from transforming the Web's business-to-consumer model into a business-to-business model, where businesses would hand their data over to third parties -- saving expenses on hardware and software -- and access data via browsers.
Ellison has suggested that doctors, for example, might find it less expensive to retrieve their data on a remote server managed by a third party at, say, a site called Doctors.com. Oracle is even starting a division called Oracle Business Online to help software vendors build Oracle 8i-based applications that can be hosted and serviced for businesses.
"Internet computing will utterly kill client/server computing," he maintains. "Client/server is an uneconomic model, with an industry labor shortage that we're paying for now."
If the attraction of a universal server is easy to understand, it's also unquestionably hard to pull off. Oracle commands a lead over Microsoft in enterprise database software, whereas Microsoft commands platforms and file systems. The reaction at Comdex and other developments in the coming months should reveal whether these critical software categories have marriage potential or are best left separated.