Business Intelligence Lowdown: Embedded Databases

Comments

February 16, 2006

Embedded Databases - Open-Source Vs Commercial

With the multitude of options available in the open-source database market, many organizations are questioning the need to pay for a commercial database product. The deciding factor in the choice between open-source and commercial lies in identifying the key business requirements of an organization. If you place emphasis on stability and functionality issues, you'd be better off with a commercial database since open-source offerings cover just the basics, says Les King, program director for DB2 Marketing Information Management Software Group at IBM. He adds that an enterprise should deliberate on seven key comparison points when making the choice __ scalability, availability, transaction throughput, larger capacity, support for mixed workloads, autonomic features, and integration with other products.

A key selling point for open-source databases is that they can be tailored to suit an organization's specific needs. In reality though, those who deploy open-source solutions do so mostly because they are looking for a free, embeddable, distributable database, and not because they are looking to customize the software.

But on the downside, open-source technology will not be able to meet the demanding changes in the needs of database users, contends Microsoft's Carol Dullmeyer, senior product manager for SQL Server. The morphing of database needs and features will drive customers' abilities to grow their databases, build reports, analyze the business, or distribute data to mobile employees, she adds. Security of data is another cause for concern, besides cost and flexibility issues. Organizations should consider if the code in open-source offerings is secure and stable.

In the meantime, the bigger players in the commercial database market like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, are also joining the open-source fray by offering free, scaled-down versions of their products to lure basic users, in the hope that they will be tempted to upgrade at a later date.

--
Did you enjoy this post?

February 16, 2006 in Software | Permalink