SQL Server and Oracle Total Cost of Administration
Alinean Study
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Summary
As platforms continue to evolve in the technology industry, a central concern for IT executives is implementing the right systems to maximize the return on their investments. Since labor costs dominate most IT budgets, selecting platforms with lower implementation and on-going management costs can significantly improve overall IT efficiency, and allow for the reallocation of resources from basic maintenance and operations to more innovative functions.
In the paper, Alinean, an independent IT value analyst firm, examines the Total Cost of Administration (TCA) for two of the industry’s leading database management offerings from Microsoft Corp. and OracleŽ.
Key Results
The survey results reveal that overall, Microsoft SQL Server required significantly less effort to install and maintain, than Oracle Database.
1. | Study participants reported that on average a Database Administrator (DBA) could manage over 30 Microsoft SQL Server databases, while Oracle Database implementations required one DBA per 10 databases. |
2. | Factoring in slightly higher average salaries for Oracle DBAs, the corresponding annual cost for administration for these two databases comes out to $2,847 per year per database for Microsoft SQL Server and $10,206 per year per database for Oracle Database; over a 350% difference in annual costs per database. |
| Measure | Microsoft | Oracle |
Average # of Databases with company | 107 | 87 |
Mission critical databases | 66.1% | 63.8% |
Transaction-based databases | 55.7% | 60.3% |
Decision-support databases | 44.3% | 39.7% |
Users supported per DBA | 6784 | 5567 |
Databases supported per DBA | 31.2 | 9.9 |
Annual TCA per database | $2847 | $10,206 |
Annual TCA per database user | $13.09 | $18.15 |
Table 1: Key Study Findings reveal that Microsoft SQL Server has a TCA advantage over Oracle Database.