[Building Sakai] MySQL vs Oracle

[Noah Botimer]

Hi Mike,

I'm not a DBA and don't even play one on TV. However, I'm betting that you'll hear from groups that use each, but not both.

In my experience, I did admin for a modest (10k user, 500 concurrent) instance on MySQL and it was basically a zero-touch affair from the database side. Once some backups were in place, it hummed along nicely. The folks from Cape Town or Rutgers can probably tell you what a large MySQL installation takes.

Here at Michigan, we have experienced Oracle DBAs managing and actively watching over our environment. It's a different scale than I'm personally used to, and I can say that their (particularly Drew's) expertise has been critical at the top end of Sakai instance usage. Indiana is also a large Oracle shop.

I can't pick sides for you, but I will say that both platforms are supported at large scale. Neither is a toy for those who use it. You won't be alone either way. I would suggest that you project your scale and find a buddy in the community.

Personally, I might be inclined to "go where your staffing is", given that you wouldn't be blazing a new, untested trail. If you plan to continue your Oracle deployment and have some capacity, it could be path of least surprise.

Thanks,
-Noah

On Mar 16, 2011, at 12:26 PM, Jennings, Michael wrote:

> Hi All,
>  
> Here at UNC-Chapel Hill we are trying to quickly make a decision on if we should go with MySQL for our Enterprise Database or use Oracle.  Currently UNC-Chapel Hill is a Oracle shop and we are not running any MySQL databases at an enterprise level.  I would like to see what the pro’s and con’s of using each database would be, and see if there are any major hurdles with using Oracle that we will have to overcome.
>  
> Your input is greatly appreciated.
>  
> Mike Jennings
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>  
> Office: (919) 843-5013
> Cell: (919) 442-8337
> E-mail: mike_jennings at unc.edu
> _______________________________________________
> sakai-dev mailing list
> sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-dev
> 
> TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to sakai-dev-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of "unsubscribe"

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/sakai-dev/attachments/20110316/213624f3/attachment.html