Where Are The PHP/MySQL Consultants?

Bryan Kallisti asks: "I'm not a programmer. I do dabble a little bit with PHP and MySQL but I am far, far from an expert. My company is getting ready to implement a project that will tie all our information together with a centralized DB. The consultants that we have talked with are all SQL Server and VB based. I'm pro-open source stuff and want to do what I can to help sway this decision to go Open Source. I have some influence but I am having a difficult time finding consulting groups that focus on Open Source stuff. I did a search on google and only found a handful. What do you guys think would be the best way of approaching this?"

Comments

Re:Questions

[FattMattP]

Hah! Name one major company using PostgreSQL for a mission-critical database.

Name one major company using MySQL for a mission-critical database.

Re:Questions

[FattMattP]

well, NASA, according to this article. that a major enough company?

Sure, that's a big company. But a database that's used to send out a couple of email alerts to people hardly qualifies as mission critical. Mission critical would be something that the company relies on for its very survival, or at least something that if it were to go down or become corrupt, would have severely negative consequences that would affect the operation and success of said company.

Questions

[rjamestaylor]

My company is getting ready to implement ... a centralized DB. The consultants that we have talked with are all SQL Server and VB based. I'm pro-open source stuff and want to do what I can to help sway this decision to go Open Source. ... What do you guys think would be the best way of approaching this?

First, consider PostgreSQL instead of MySQL (lots of reasons, but the first is that PostgreSQL is production quality in a datacenter capacity). MySQL is great and getting beter, but from what we've seen, PostgreSQL is a candidate replacement for Oracle.Try this Google search.

Second, if your company has only spoken with VB/SQLServer consultants does that reflect a management decision to stick with MSFT products? If they haven't talked to an Oracle guy/gal or two, that's what it sounds like.

Third, who maintains this beast after the consultants leave? If it's an inhouse team then what technologies are inhouse already? If you're in a MSFT-shop, then it will be a hard, hard sell to centralize using non-MSFT tools. What's more, if your people are MSFT-centric I'd say stay with the toolset. This is a business decision.

Anyway, there's a lot of things to consider. If your company is starting fresh then the field is wide open and open source tools could be the way to go (should, IMO). If you're entrenched...keep digging!

We're Right Here

[waldoj]

Just look under "Web Development Companies" on PHP's site, or under "Some MySQL Consultants" on MySQL's site. My company has been doing (almost exclusively) PHP/MySQL website development and consulting since the spring of 1999. Thanks in part to our listings on these sites, we get a good amount of site traffic (and therefore business) from folks looking for exactly what we do best.

-Waldo

MySQL versus other DBs

[JabberWokky]

I use MySQL. I also am running web sites that need to do lots of reads and very little writes.

MySQL blows most databases out of the water... in this niche (or any other where damnfast reads and limited writes are necessary). I'd look at your requirements, and who you are bringing on board.

Realistically, MySQL will fill lots of cases, but if you're looking into a situation where you need to maintain complex relations or generate complex reports[1], you're better off going elsewhere... and that's from someone who has pitted MySQL's stability and speed against Oracle in the real world and won *in the realm of webserving*. I'd not attempt it in a contact database that ties to PBX phone logs, with a managerial overview and logging and complex sales/marketing/salesperson reports... I did that too, and went with Oracle happily.

[1] BTW, Crystal Reports works great with MySQL through the ODBC connector. Although not the best, it is in common usage (i.e., people in sales/marketing often know how to use it themselves).

--
Evan

Well...

[BluedemonX]

What is the difference between a pizza and an Open Source programmer?

The pizza can feed a family of four.