6 ms·

PG over mysql is obvious IMO. PG over mssql, not so obvious. People often forget the 'management system' part of RDBMS. MSSQL provides an enormous amount of too

PG over mysql is obvious IMO. PG over mssql, not so obvious. People often forget the 'management system' part of RDBMS. MSSQL provides an enormous amount of tooling in the typical enterprise install. Analysis services, data tools, etc... provide a lot of value beyond a data store. Of course if you don't need any of these additional tools or can't afford them, then yeah pg is a great choice.

runako 6y ago
Cost is a really solid argument against MSSQL. Even at Azure, MSSQL costs ~6x as much as the open-source databases. For even relatively small workloads, it's not hard for the MSSQL license to cost as much as an FTE. Aside from the raw cost, the licensing model and cost considerations can drive design decisions. In my experience, most shops that use MSSQL do so because nobody on staff has experience with other databases.
- matwood 6y ago
  Sure, but we're talking about enterprises. Back when I could walk down the hall to the datacenter, paying $30k for the hardware and $60k for licenses was normal. Every time I bought a new server I tried to make a case for pg or mysql, but the cost to replace SSIS, SSAS, or SSRS either with another product or to build a replacement was always more.
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  > Cost is a really solid argument against MSSQL If you're a small 2-5 person team, sure. But once dev payroll breaks $1M/yr, paying ~$100k for SQL Server doesn't seem so bad anymore.
  - runako 6y ago
    That doesn't match the economics at any company I've seen. Dev payroll of $1mm/yr gets you something like 6 devs or fewer in the US. I have yet to encounter a team that would rather have SQL Server than another developer given the explicit choice between the two (assuming easy migration, etc.).
vladvasiliu 6y ago
Are there no equivalents to these tools for PG? I've only interacted with Analysis Services and Reporting Services for maybe five minutes, but the impression I was left with is that they're extremely clunky, even by Windows standards. I also remember a weird situation with SSL wildcard certificate configuration, where the interface said the configuration wasn't applied, but it actually was. My client subcontracts this to a supposedly "expert DBA" shop, and they always seem to take ages to do what look like simple things on the surface. (I rarely if ever interact with them, so I don't know whether they're actually competent or not.)
- matwood 6y ago
  Tools like SSIS, SSAS, SSRS were hard to replace for less money for a very long time. There are products out there now, but they are not cheap either. I still think SSIS was one of the easiest and most flexible to use ETL tools out, and it was included with MSSQLs enterprise license.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Analysis services, data tools, etc... provide a lot of value beyond a data store They probably do if you have certain needs, but at lots of places they seem to be the basis for solutions that would be far less complicated (and maintainable with a far more common skillset) without them.
- kthejoker2 6y ago
  Sorry, OLAP and ETL are real problems that need to be solved, SSAS and SSIS were (and still are in many cases) as good as the next tool for solving them, especially with their enterprise features like security and auditing/logging, which are almost always nonexistent in opensource / homegrown solutions. Tools like Airflow and Druid are just now getting to where those tools were in 2005 ... unfortunately those tools haven't done much since about 2015 when Azure became the new hotness.

runako 6y ago

Cost is a really solid argument against MSSQL. Even at Azure, MSSQL costs ~6x as much as the open-source databases. For even relatively small workloads, it's not hard for the MSSQL license to cost as much as an FTE. Aside from the raw cost, the licensing model and cost considerations can drive design decisions. In my experience, most shops that use MSSQL do so because nobody on staff has experience with other databases.

matwood 6y ago
Sure, but we're talking about enterprises. Back when I could walk down the hall to the datacenter, paying $30k for the hardware and $60k for licenses was normal. Every time I bought a new server I tried to make a case for pg or mysql, but the cost to replace SSIS, SSAS, or SSRS either with another product or to build a replacement was always more.
tomnipotent 6y ago
> Cost is a really solid argument against MSSQL If you're a small 2-5 person team, sure. But once dev payroll breaks $1M/yr, paying ~$100k for SQL Server doesn't seem so bad anymore.
- runako 6y ago
  That doesn't match the economics at any company I've seen. Dev payroll of $1mm/yr gets you something like 6 devs or fewer in the US. I have yet to encounter a team that would rather have SQL Server than another developer given the explicit choice between the two (assuming easy migration, etc.).

vladvasiliu 6y ago

Are there no equivalents to these tools for PG? I've only interacted with Analysis Services and Reporting Services for maybe five minutes, but the impression I was left with is that they're extremely clunky, even by Windows standards. I also remember a weird situation with SSL wildcard certificate configuration, where the interface said the configuration wasn't applied, but it actually was. My client subcontracts this to a supposedly "expert DBA" shop, and they always seem to take ages to do what look like simple things on the surface. (I rarely if ever interact with them, so I don't know whether they're actually competent or not.)

matwood 6y ago
Tools like SSIS, SSAS, SSRS were hard to replace for less money for a very long time. There are products out there now, but they are not cheap either. I still think SSIS was one of the easiest and most flexible to use ETL tools out, and it was included with MSSQLs enterprise license.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Analysis services, data tools, etc... provide a lot of value beyond a data store They probably do if you have certain needs, but at lots of places they seem to be the basis for solutions that would be far less complicated (and maintainable with a far more common skillset) without them.

kthejoker2 6y ago
Sorry, OLAP and ETL are real problems that need to be solved, SSAS and SSIS were (and still are in many cases) as good as the next tool for solving them, especially with their enterprise features like security and auditing/logging, which are almost always nonexistent in opensource / homegrown solutions. Tools like Airflow and Druid are just now getting to where those tools were in 2005 ... unfortunately those tools haven't done much since about 2015 when Azure became the new hotness.