Date:         Fri, 24 May 1996 15:35:19 -0500
Reply-To:     GERALD ZUCKIER <ZUCKIER@CHIME.ORG>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         GERALD ZUCKIER <ZUCKIER@CHIME.ORG>
Subject:      Re: Warehousing War Stories?
In-Reply-To:  <199605240701.AAA09440@dfw-ix10.ix.netcom.com>

We have a medium size pile of data, I would say. (Hospital records for a couple
of million people for the last few years). Current state of our data warehouse
project here is that after 3 years of Oracle development with basically nothing
to show for it, we begin to realize that even after it gets up and running
Oracle is going to be a money and time sink to maintain and tune. We begin to
see Oracle more as a competitor to DB2 with all the attendant hoopla than the
lean and mean midrange data warehouse tool we had expected. A half-fast pilot
project cobbled together by a couple of bright guys (not me), desperate to get
at their data, using the obsolete version of SQLServer that came with our NT
file server, is up and running just fine after a couple of weeks of part time
effort, from absolute scratch by novices. Further tests with the current version
show an overwhelming performance advantage for SQLServer. Checking the
literature shows an overwhelming price advantage for SQLServer. I leave it up to
the reader to draw their own conclusions. Caveat: I have no particular axe to
grind, pro or con either product; like everybody else here I originally just
assumed Oracle was the way to go. I don't care which gets installed as long as I
can get at the data effectively. These are just the facts as we have experienced
them. No religious arguments, please.