ISOM

Comparison of Relational
database management systems
Arijit Sengupta

Who are the main contenders?

ISOM

Commercial software
Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise
IBM DB2
Oracle
Microsoft SQL Server
Teradata

Free/GPL/Opensource:
MySQL
PostgreSQL

Things to consider when

deciding on a DBMS
ISOM

Price
Operating System Support
Most important features (ACID, Referential
Integrity support, Transactions support)
Other important features (Indexes,
materialized view support, trigger support)
Scalability and security
Availability of support and software

Vendor leaders
ISOM

For low-medium level servers, Oracle is the leader

in the market share, although growth is declining
IBM DB2 has the highest market share for highend servers and mainframes, increasing growth in
midrange after acquisition of Informix
Revenue

2001

2002

2003

2004

IBM

$2,419 M

$2,400 M

$2,519 M

$2,665 M

Oracle

$2,831 M

$2,246 M

$2,299 M

$2,636 M

Microsoft

$1,020 M

$1,191 M

$1,323 M

$1,561 M

NCR

$169 M

$184 M

$196 M

$230 M

Others

$686 M

$701 M

$723 M

$695 M

$7,125 M

$6,722 M

$7,060 M

$7,787 M

Total

Operating System Support

ISOM

Windows

Mac OS X

Linux

BSD

UNIX

Adaptive Server Enterprise

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

DB2

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

Microsoft SQL Server

Yes

No

No

No

No

MySQL

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Oracle

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

PostgreSQL

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Teradata

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

SQL Server (Express)

ISOM

Express version free and redistributable,

license to commercial version varies
between $600 to $10000
Support for Windows only
Express version limited to one CPU and
single user thread
Limited features, but scales easily to
Enterprise version
Comes with all standard SQL tools
Email support

Oracle 10g Standard Edition

v10.2.0.1
ISOM

Free download for non-profit, noncommercial use

Approximately $15000/cpu for
commercial use
Support for most operating systems
Very strong support and service
Weak user interface, complex installation
and maintenance process

MySQL
ISOM

No limit on # of CPUs, fully featured,

support for several OSs
$0 without Support, approx. $600$6000 for subscription-based
support
Highly scalable, provides support
for most types of indexes and
storage methods

IBM DB2 Express v8.2

ISOM

Free for non-commercial use,

$6000 per CPU unlimited users
Express version limited to 2 CPUs.
Support for Windows, Linux and
Unix
Strong features set, very good user
interface
Limited support but can be
purchased for additional cost

Database comparison charts on

the NET
ISOM

http://www.geocities.com/mailsoftware42/db/
http://www.builderau.com.au/architect/databa
se/soa/Road_test_Four_databases_tested/0,
39024547,39224962-7,00.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_r
elational_database_management_systems

References
ISOM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.sybase.com
http://www.oracle.com
http://www.teradata.com/
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db
2/
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/
http://www.mysql.com
http://www.postgresql.com