Having argued for conversion from SAS to Oracle in one context and against in another, let me say a few words in the few minutes that I have left in the work day. Oracle has two areas of unquestioned strength: - as an indexed server supporting numbers of data entry and editing clerks who need to access small sets of records; - as a server that maintains complex, indexed views of relational databases. SAS has several areas of unquestioned strength: - acquisition and editing of large files of data, particularly across platforms; - descriptive and inferential statistics; - fuzzy searches through large volumes of data; - ad hoc reporting from different sources of data. You will hear good arguments from both sides on other capabilities and deficiencies.

If clerical or administrative personnel need access to an active database on a Unix or NT server, I'd lean toward Oracle. If programmers or statisticians need access to a database that is being updated in batch mode, SAS has the edge. Bad database design can make either a pain to implement and maintain, but SAS and good database design requires less overhead and works as well or better except in Oracle's primary markets. Sig

-----Original Message----- From: joe17836@MY-DEJA.COM at Internet-E-Mail Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2000 7:59 PM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU at Internet-E-Mail Subject: RE: INSERT SASDATASETS into ORACLE Tables

In article <20000712175106.47124.qmail@hotmail.com>, sashole@mediaone.net wrote: > John, > > Welcome to the wonderful world of the stellar Oracle performance! I hope it > is worth those M$$ that migrated to the Oracle coffers. On a constructive > note, please let me suggest that you should read the excellent SUGI 25 paper > by our fellow sasler Dianne Rhodes "Migrate to ORACLE? I need my SAS > Software!"? Suffices it to say that its conclusion consists of but a single > sentence: "Stick with SAS". > > Kind regards, > ==================== > Paul M. Dorfman > Jacksonville, Fl > ==================== >

Paul,

Perhaps you know something about John's situation that I don't so my comments should be read with that in mind. I will say I agree that migration to Oracle is very expensive and, in many cases where the business already uses SAS, unnecessary.

As far as proc dbload-ing data into Oracle goes, I have found that dbload is rather inefficient as compared to, say, SQL*Loader which should be able to handle loading 10,000,000 records in MUCH less time than 24 hours. However, when pulling data out of Oracle, I have found just the opposite -- SAS compares very well to and in some cases performs better than other solutions such as "spooling", the PL/SQL utl_file package, and Pro C.

Also, I am curious. Do you find that SAS can deal with very large amounts of data as well as Oracle can? (I have no specific number in mind when I say "large".) I have always been under the (admittedly vague) impression that, for sheer speed in storing/processing very large amounts of data, Oracle is superior. I realize that this all depends on how the data is organized, indexed, etc.

Understand that I am asking these questions as a longtime user and proponent of SAS. I am simply curious about your experience.

Thank you.

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