SQL Server and Oracle Database In-Memory compete in the database management systems category. SQL Server appears to have the upper hand due to its cost-effectiveness and deployment flexibility.
Features: SQL Server offers dynamic resource allocation, a robust graphical query analysis tool, and extensive OLAP services suited for medium-sized businesses. It ensures ease of use, virtual-friendly abilities, and has a strong community support system. In contrast, Oracle Database In-Memory enhances database performance, especially for data warehouses and analytics, with advanced security features like Database Vault and columnar format capabilities.
Room for Improvement: SQL Server needs improved compatibility with non-Windows platforms, simpler integration services, enhanced indexing, and more frequent security updates. Aligning with modern cloud services and reducing licensing costs for enterprise features would be advantageous. Oracle Database In-Memory users recommend cost reductions, easier integration, increased automation, user-friendliness, and advancements in scalability and performance tuning.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SQL Server offers flexible deployment options, suitable for private, public, hybrid, and on-premises environments. Although users generally rate its technical support as good with extensive resources, response time consistency needs improvement. Oracle offers robust deployment emphasizing private and hybrid clouds, with sophisticated but costly support where communication and response times could be better.
Pricing and ROI: SQL Server is cost-effective for small and medium enterprises, though its licensing complexity and cost can be challenging for larger deployments. Despite this, it provides a good ROI due to its comprehensive features. Oracle Database In-Memory is expensive with additional costs for advanced features, but offers a strong ROI in performance and security-focused environments, which may lead organizations to explore open-source alternatives for savings.
SQL Server is the most cost-effective with good human resource availability to manage it.
All applications need our repository to provide services for our online business or our customers, so the return is good.
With Standard edition, they have saved a ton of money and they are really happy about that.
Support quality varies across regions, with more advanced solutions from the U.S. and UK compared to Asian region support.
The technical support from Oracle is very good.
I rate the technical support of Oracle an eight or nine out of ten.
There was a time when Microsoft support provided very crisp answers, but over time, they have diluted their support to third parties, leading to a drop in support quality.
I give their technical support a rating of ten out of ten.
When we created support tickets, the experience was very positive.
The server where we installed it has grown from 64 gigabytes in RAM to 256 gigabytes, demonstrating significant scalability capabilities.
Most of the time, they simply add another node in the availability group.
I can scale both horizontally and vertically without challenges.
Oracle Database In-Memory is stable, which means there are no glitches or issues.
It was very difficult to move data from on-site to cloud in one attempt at the start, because we didn't have sufficient bandwidth to copy the data files to the cloud.
There were critical repercussions from this issue, as the databases decreased in size immensely, filling the disk and causing everything to stop.
All applications supporting SQL Server in my experience work very well across various industries including telecom, finance, banking, ad, entertainment, and workforce management.
Allowing in-memory support features to handle processes without relying heavily on vector databases.
The area where improvement is required the most in the product is the UI.
It is fine to do a first release that works, but you cannot simply abandon it in the following years without service packs and improvements.
One long-pending request from Microsoft is for two-node write capabilities, as currently, I can write from one node and read from multiple nodes.
When we consider the price for replication in another site, the pricing becomes prohibitive.
Recent reductions in cloud costs and learning opportunities, such as free portals for students, make the pricing reasonable without hindering access to powerful features and performance.
The pricing for Oracle Database In-Memory is more affordable.
Cost savings on human resources for Windows plus SQL Server versus other solutions.
The biggest benefit of Oracle Database In-Memory is dealing with a huge amount of information without any latency for our response time.
The valuable features of Oracle Database In-Memory include its capability to bypass disk storage for faster memory operations, which is critical for transactions and analytics.
Always On HADR functionality is one of the features that I use on a daily basis and one of my most used features, saving me lots of time, especially since previously I had to build a SQL cluster and Windows clusters that had many dependencies on shared infrastructure, but now with Always On, it is too stable with easy management and almost zero maintenance, which SQL Server handles itself.
I have been working with SQL Server for a long time, and it works well for me as I am using it in different applications, such as web applications, Windows applications, or the data warehouse reporting.
The best features of SQL Server are availability and stability.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| SQL Server | 12.1% |
| Oracle Database In-Memory | 1.9% |
| Other | 86.0% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 6 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 4 |
| Large Enterprise | 23 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 119 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 59 |
| Large Enterprise | 115 |
Oracle Database In-Memory transparently accelerates analytics by orders of magnitude while simultaneously speeding up mixed-workload OLTP. With Oracle Database In-Memory, users get immediate answers to business questions that previously took hours.
Oracle Database In-Memory delivers leading-edge in-memory performance without the need to restrict functionality, or accept compromises, complexity and risk. Deploying Oracle Database In-Memory with any existing Oracle Database compatible application is as easy as flipping a switch - no application changes are required. Oracle Database In-Memory is fully integrated with the Oracle Database’s renowned scale-up, scale-out, storage tiering, availability, and security technologies making it the most industrialstrength offering on the market.
The ability to easily perform real-time data analysis together with real-time transaction processing on all existing applications enables organizations to transform into Real-Time Enterprises that quickly make data-driven decisions, respond instantly to customer demands, and continuously optimize all key processes.
For more information on Oracle Database In-Memory, visit Oracle.com
SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) by Microsoft. The product's main purposes are to store data and retrieve it as requested by other software applications - on the same computer or on another computer across a shared network. The solution is built on top of Structured Query Language (SQL), which is a standardized programming language used for relational database management.
The product is tied to Transact-SQL (T-SQL), which is an implementation of SQL from Microsoft that adds several proprietary programming extensions to the standard language. SQL Server is built similarly to other RDBMS products, as its structure is a row-based table that connects related data elements in different tables to one another. One of its most important components is the SQL Server Database Engine, as it controls data processing, storage, and security. Beneath the Database Engine is the SQL Server Operating System, which is used for memory and I/O management, locking data to avoid unneeded upgrades, and job scheduling.
The solution has four editions with different sets of services and tools. They include:
The first two are available for free and are typically utilized by smaller companies, as they work with fewer functions and storage. The second two editions are generally used by bigger organizations and enterprises and offer more features.
The solution has several functions through which users can facilitate different data-related processes. These include:
SQL Server Services
SQL Server has a wide range of add-on services that provide additional benefits beyond database management. These services include:
SQL Server Benefits
The solution has many benefits for users. These include the following:
Reviews from Real Users
A president at a consultancy evaluates SQL Server as a veteran solution with critical log shipping feature.
Harkamal S., a user at a manufacturing company, rates SQL Server with a high mark because it is a stable, scalable, and easy-to-deploy solution that pretty much covers everything.
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