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New SQL Server Release Slips to 2005
Strudelkugel writes "CRN reports SQL Server 'Yukon' will slip to 2005, complicating plans for ISVs and creating opportunities for OSS and other competitors."
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MySQL is the best database around for the price actually!
Has any one contemplated the concept that Microsoft might actually be taking the time to make better products? I realise its taboo on slashdot to show any support to Microsoft, but the fact is that they are not stupid! Do you honestly believe they would just decide, hey, lets let linux + competitors get a foothold in our markets whilst we jack about! WRONG!
One thing anyone in the IT business should learn is to never ever under estimate microsoft.
I hate to disagree with that, but we recently had a project and had the choice of which SQL to use. Customer pushed back and simply said MS.
Just because the product isn't there doesn't mean they will automatically go to another 'free' alternative- instead it means they'll simply use the older version until it wears out.
The trouble with MySQL is that you really do get what you pay for ..
If I had any doubts that MS is helping OSS and slowly erasing itself, it is now clearing :-)
Jokes aside, this will seriously affect businesses that have paid for their upgrade licenses, as the licenses will expire before the sql server is released. This will make decision makers view Open Source in a new light. Atleast, in Open Source you don't pay for future vaporware in the present.
"In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
Here's a company with many thousands of employees, more money than God, and a dominant position in almost every market segment they're in. And they STILL can't write secure code OR meet most of their delivery deadlines (deadlines which they set themselves, not ones that were imposed on them).
Meanwhile, the groups that produce products like MySQL and PostgreSQL have had steady releases, a wealth of needed features, and relatively few security incidents.
Unless you're already so heavily bought in to their infrastructure that any change would be prohibitively expensive, I can't see how it makes any sense to base your business on Microsoft's products. They're expensive, they're insecure, they're performance laggards, and you just can't rely on them for support.
Cheers,
I think they are delaying not due to stealing OSS software ideas, but honestly trying to make their software better. For the first time in many years MS has real competition. They can't release another insecure trashbag OS or database server. If they release before it is actually ready, then they will get tons of bad press and their lunch ate by OSS software.
Lets just hope OSS developers don't sit on their laurels during these delays. If they do they will be playing major catch up come 2005/2006. This is the time for OSS to take the lead. The boys at Redmond may be evil, but they are no fools.
This is one of Microsoft's most important products. Finacially, there is a huge amount of "positive perception" riding on SQL server.
Businesses may run on one of their OSes, but businesses run IN SQL Server. This product can make or (more critically) brake businesses. If rumors of major problems with SQL server screwing up business were to get out, corporate perception of them would tank.
They have no real choice with this product but to try and make sure it is ready (and take more time if needed) rather than push it to market.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Transactions? Exactly how many years behind the competition is OSS on that one?
If you used real databases, in real production environments on complex data sets, you'd see that MySQL just doesn't cut it - yet. It's great for trivial 'simple but big' datasets, but for data mining and analysis it's awful.
Once SQL server 2005 (now) is out, noone will even remember things like MySQL
no way! MySQL will always have it's place: it's an open source alternative and i'd also guess it would have a predominantly different market.
Then buy a support contract. Then you will get what you paid for. I'm using MySQL and MS SQL 2000 in an Enterprise environment and MySQL (on second-hand hardware mind you -- our primary database runs on MS because that's what our vendor supports -- bah) is ten times easier to manage and work with then SQL Server 2000.
I'm not even using a support contract and I still prefer MySQL. Saying "you get what you pay for" without even acknowledging that they offer support (and the fact that it's open source and you can fix bugs/add your own features without paying thousands of dollars of licensing fees) is a fairly stupid statement to make.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
How about ANSI '92 compliance for MySQL... that would be a good start!
No, a good start would be to flush MySQL down the toilet where it belongs and use a real database engine such as PostgreSQL or Firebird.
Seriously! Why wait for MySQL to add all those missing features when such superior alternatives already exist, and, furthermore, MySQL has a more restrictive license?
Yukon is finally going to deliver online restoration, database mirroring with automatic failover, and support for mirrored backup sets.
Let's face it, these features isn't something most users need. If Microsoft sees real trouble, they will simply slash the per-processor license cost by a factor of 50 or 100, and switching suddenly becomes a non-issue for most users.
Per-client licenses and awfully high per-processor licensing costs are the most important factor which motivates most users to attempt other solutions. Of course, the proprietary databases have important features which look very good on paper, but I've seen quite a few installations which use a multi-thousand dollar database as if it were MySQL (not even using online backup). You can get away with that if you only need a workgroup server license, but if you need 20,000 client access licenses (or multiple per-processor licenses), licensing becomes a problem and you'll certainly consider other options.
erm, people do actually use these things before they hit production you know. We had Exchange 2003 in place months before the release. They don't just stick these products out there, they let people use4 them first and check whether things work... duh...
Meanwhile, MySQL is now doing transactions, and VIEWs are on their way in 5.1. It's GPL, so it's free (as in speech).
Why not use Postgres? That way, you don't have to wait for features that all the other RDBMS products have had for years. What is it that makes MySQL so much more popular than Postgres? It sure isn't features.
Of course MS SQL has transactions. Any decent database software has transactions as standard. mySQL is a toy database, just one step up from storing your data in CSV files.
Wow, views will finally be in version 5.1.
Jeez. First time I looked at MySQL a couple of years ago for a project I started putting a basic database scheme together an went to construct a view, only for my Jaw to hit the desk when I found out they were not available. Views are such a basic component of RDBMS databases that it simply hadn't occurred to me (an Oracle, DB2, SQLServer and others veteran) that software could be release that called itself a relational database that didn't have them.
Anyway, just went and used Postgres instead. It's still beyond me why people even bother giving MySQL the time of day when the incomparably superior Postgres is available under GPL.
sorry, but I know that MANY corperations are still using MSSQL 6.5 for critical databases because 2000 still has some problems.
the only other database they use is Oracle, and MSSQL is a tiny joke of a toy compared to it.
The main complaints are not this, it is that many companies paid huge amounts of money on licenses because microsoft said the give me every update license would be cheaper then purchasing the upgrades when the product was released. Now they have paid thier money and they are getting nothing.
Meanwhile some of poor DBA have to work with a product which was lacking major database capabilites when it was released, and now have to tell managers they the capabilities and money they were expecting for 2004 will be late 2005
I really do wish mickysoft would rename their flagship database something else. Are they that arrogant that they feel the need for such a generic name? That's about like naming your product "Web Server" or "Network File Server". When someone mentions SQL server, I always have them clarify whether or not they are talking in general terms for some sort of relational backend, or are they referring to microsoft's product. Sometimes they don't even know the difference, but perhaps that is microsoft's end goal.
otherwise you'd realize you build software to specifications, one of which is "we have a site license for MS SQL Server."
That means... they tell us to build the system to operate on it, and we deliver.
Coming back to them and informing them we aren't going to listen to their needs would result in, oh, someone else having been awarded the contract.
I think it's the same reason that people will insist on MS, i.e. the "know" MS so assume it has best solution for the job.
The same with MySQL, at around 1999 when I first started to look at doing some (very simple) database work it was the most developed thing you could get for free. At that time, Postgres was not optimised for speed and was still regarded as research product.
Anyhow, the situation has changed somewhat but some people still think it's 1999, of course most of these people are n't RDBMS people so tend to belittle essential features, until MySQL gets them.
Give MS a frickin' break....MS said there is going to be something like 40 *million* lines of code...
Just out of curiosity, I counted the lines of code (both c & assembler, all processors) of the 2.6.4 kernel. It is less than 5.5 million.
40 million lines of code. There's all the reason I ever need to not use it.
With 40 million lines of code, you never fix bugs, the best you can hope for is to relocate them to a really obscure place.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Joking aside, I think these delays can be attributed to the whole "Trustworthy Computing" thing and MS discovering just how much junk code was floating around in each new version. They have deep enough pockets to ride out these kind of delays but it does open a great window of opporutnity for OS X and Linux along with a raft of other OSS solutions. A break in the constant upgrade cycle is an opening we should all be working to take advantage of, from desktop tech to database admin to kernel devs.
Unfortunately, as far as I can see (and my idea will be readily disputed by others) no OSS database is ready for "enterprise" systems (whatever that means, I work in a company who writes software and the backend can be any RDMBS as long as they have a decend JDBC driver). SQL Server 2k has lots of missing features which makes our life very hard and I'm not a fan but at the moment I can't go to any of our customers and say use postgres or mySQL etc.
Another big player is DB2 by IBM which claims it has the fastest database on the world but DB2 is cumbersome, hard to manage compared to Oracle and MS SQL2k but it works almost under any platform under the sun.
Database world is quite interesting, I can't say any RDMS system out there is perfect.
As long as you can accept the limitations of MySQL, it's perfectly usable. MySQL is faster and lighter weight than PostgreSQL in my experience. I haven't tried Firebird yet.
Honestly, I wouldn't want to run a site like Slashdot on MySQL, but for smaller projects it seems useful.
RDBMSes don't implement Codd's 12 rules anyway, so maybe none of them are "real". Personally I think it's good to have a range of database options. At the high end, Oracle and DB2 have loads of features, and are presumably "real" by your definition, but they are also incredibly complex to administrate, which is why most companies have dedicated DBAs for them.
What is it that makes MySQL so much more popular than Postgres?
Lower barrier to entry.
Since the vast majority of toy applications don't
need anything more than a hashed flat file (like gdbm), people find it easy
to get things working with MySQL (MySQL abstracts a flat file quite easily)
and suddenly think they're Database GODS. Then, when they attempt a new
db project, they either force MySQL into it because it's what they know, or
they look at a more powerful DB package, realize they're in over their head,
and decide that the DB package is to blame for their inability to use it, thus
reinforcing their idea that MySQL is a better tool.
Now I realize that there are lots of applications where MySQL is perfectly
adequate, but the ease of using MySQL for toy applications has fooled lots
of people who have limited db skills at best into thinking that they're
experts.
*sigh* back to work...
>corperations are still using MSSQL 6.5 for critical
>databases because 2000 still has some problems.
>the only other database they use is Oracle, and
>MSSQL is a tiny joke of a toy compared to it.
I suppose you have never run SQL 2000 on a decently powerful machine.
I also suppose you never put a load balancing application on top of a dozen or so SQL 2000 boxes.
Get over it. SQL 2000 is on par with Oracle, Sybase, DB2, etc.
How the fuck did this get modded to +5?
Wow, MySQL now has an official front-end tool (instead of one of many third-party ones that it's had for ages), oohh, that'll make ALL the difference. It's got NOWHERE NEAR the feature set of MS-SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, or Firebird. Christ, we had to wait till version FOUR till they added native transaction support (which wasn't ever written by them), subqueries, replication, etc. and we're still not sure that it even does any of this properly now! (Each point release massively changes and/or extends features, which is stupid for a supposedly stable DB.) Sounds like a "real" DB to me that'll definitely compete with Oracle and MS-SQL, yeah right...
But because Slashdot loves MySQL this gets modded to +5 by people who don't know shit about databases, and certainly not about MS SQL Server. Great.
The only reason MySQL became popular was because it was free and ran well together with Apache on modest hardware, so ISPs could bundle it as a *simple* website backend DB. It does that pretty well (as long as you don't mind running REPAIR TABLE every now and again), but it's certainly no viable alternative to MS-SQL or Oracle. Anyone that thinks that and uses the acronym M$ in the same post really doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about.
SQL Server 2000 has lots of legs to run. While there are lots of people, myself included, want to get a hold of Yukon, I don't know of many (actually, any) shops out there which are like, "We NEED Yukon to ship *Now*." Companies have been pushing back to M$ for years to slow down their release cycle, build a more secure, more stable product. And now people are complaing that they are doing just that? They can't have it both ways. As anyone who codes can tell you, writing secure, stable software is *hard*. Releasing it on time is even harder. If M$ can release Yukon and it is stable, secure, and fast, I'm willing to wait till 2007, even... -Delaware Boy in 2004
Incidentally, I'm not suggesting that Postgres is (yet) comparable to the commercial offerings. Just that of the open source solutions I've tried so far, it's the only one that's a real contender to be used in a "live" situation.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
> As long as you can accept the limitations of MySQL, it's perfectly usable. Don't forget the design philosophy - in which everything inconvenient is given a default operation. Thanks anyway - my only interest in mysql is if I need to walk someone through a windows installation of a free database. Other than that, I'd go elsewhere to avoid loosing money on data corruption. > MySQL is faster and lighter weight than PostgreSQL in my experience. It is lighter-weight, but in mixed-workload tests I've done (using innodb) postgresql was faster.
I'm with you on that one. Once I installed Postgres I haven't looked back. What I admire about the Postgres team is that they focus on standards first and speed second. Smart, because eventually speed catches up (through code optimization or just over time through hardware); whereas MySQL has to add in features afterwards, and do so without slowing it down (and thus pissing off its following). Please MySQL fans, no flaming.
Postgres vs. MS SQL is sort of a different issue. MS SQL has all kinds of features Postgres doesn't have, e.g. lots of replication features (I believe, though I've never had to use them) and its optimizer seems more intelligent than Postgres'. That said, very few dataservers actually use the extended features, and my casual complaints about Postgres' optimizer are quelled by a) fixing my query b) VACUUMing the database as instructed or c) realizing that it was only a few ms slower anyway. Cons on the MS SQL Server side are that a) it ties to you one platform, b) tends to have large gaping security holes and c) tends more often to be implemented by those without a clue of DBAing or security.
Whoops, I ranted.
Oh Joy
Just what you need a new microsoft database that makes refactoring and porting your DB to another platform near impossible.
Larry Elison is probably chuckling like a demented monkey over this. I can see his sales people going at this. Microsoft Software assurance = Pay them to take their time to devise ways to achieve complete customer lock in. Or, the ever popular why run your business using techniques with 50 years of validation behind them when you can do things microsofts way.
I can allready see the security problems popping up. Run C# code directly, the same code being ever more integrated into yukon. Well seems we will be able to expect worms that make slammer look like a joke. Heck you could have them replicate throughout the entire system and hold entire enterprises data hostage.
The sad thing is that the large group of IT director/ Sysadmin lemmings will go along with no one ever got fired for choosing microsoft. After all, look at how they have embraced the ever popular and ever more dangerous office/exchange combo.
SQL Server 2005? is going to be great. However, if I had to choose the *best* database I would go with Oracle without a doubt. Every tool other database manufacturers are trying to mirror generally come from Oracle. Plus they support Linux which makes buying very expensive hardware a problem of the past. Hell you can get a license for standard for $799.
Unfortunately my job runs SQL Server 2000. Having cut my teeth on PL/SQL, Transact is a nightmare because it is so limiting.
I'm actually looking forward to Yukon because the marketing ad sheet shows some really cool features. The only question is will they deliver and when will it be?
Much as I love a good MS Bashing, I'll tell you what I find really lacking (personally) for PostgreSQL and other OSS RDBMSs - a good GUI management tool.
Something that helps you craft medium-complicated joins quickly with a few clicks and drags.
For example, see this screenshot from Visual Interdev working on MSSQL2k, creating a SQL Query for a stored proc. Sure, it's almost trivial to hand-write the SQL code. But it was even easier to just select a few tables, click on the fields I want, right-click on the joins (created automatically from the database structure) to change their type, and be done.
I use PGSQL for all my personal projects now, but I sorely miss the speed that a GUI editor like this allowed me.
Same code, but different security model/sandbox. The CLR in yukon does not have access to the file system, sockets, winforms, services, the registry or anything else a virus is going to need. It's limited to communicating with the SQL process and manipulating data within a database. Nothing more.
True, and the 'troops' here are not only the programmers, but also the MS marketers and MS development community. XML features? .NET stuff? I am all in favor of having options, but I cannot imagine that each and every feature will be well-optimized or secure. MS SQL, which is and has been one of MS' best products, is going the way of Word by incorporating a bajillion features. All in all, this approach isn't bad (we all like features), except that this is a core element to businesses and you can't afford to put too much monkey s**t in it.
I suppose the crux is that databases like Postgres now features pretty robust, standard database functionality and so now MS thinks that they need to keep 'ahead' by putting all sorts of wonky stuff on top. I know I'm old-fashioned, but XML and .NET stuff...isn't that what middleware is for? Otherwise you're starting to embed way too much stuff too deep in your DB and not making it abstract/flexible...what DBs are supposed to be.
MySQL...is ten times easier to manage and work with then SQL Server 2000.
I'm sorry, but what the hell are you talking about? I've used both these servers extensively (as well as Sybase ASA, PostgreSQL and Oracle), and as much as I respect MySQL, it's certainly no easier to use than SQL Server. It's at best about the same, with SQL Server being much easier to pick up from 0 knowledge due to a surprisingly good set of help docs. Enterprise Manager and Query Analyzer are really good tools, as well...in fact, until we discovered mssqlXpress, Query Analyzer was bar none my favorite IDE for making new statements. (sqlXpress adds sourcesafe integration, versioning, and historical reporting to a clone of Q.A. with autocomplete and automatic proc generation, it is a pretty clutch tool)
MySQL is very good, but ten times better? Not really. In fact, if I had to beg for any SQL Server regardless of price, I'd take SQL Server because it's the easiest to develop for and easiest to port FROM. This gives you an app that will run on almost any other server with a little effort. I rewrote a massive app to run on Sybase in three weeks and Postgres in a month (most of which was testing the DB core of our app).
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Just calling "SQL server" suggests its the only
program that serves SQL.
They don't just stick these products out there, they let people use4 them first and check whether things work... duh...
;-)
Oh, you mean the wonderful deal where you pay for the priviledge of being a beta tester?
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
and the fact that it's open source and you can fix bugs/add your own features without paying thousands of dollars of licensing fees
no, you'll have to pay thousands of dollars in development time. And, do you really want joe-open-source off the street "fixing bugs" in your database software? It may not quite be rocket science, but the bar for that sort of work is pretty high. I sure wouldn't bet my business(es) on it.
As technically inferior MySQL is to Postgres, MySQL has a few major things going for it that ensure it's niche.
1. Easy to install on Windows. The average coder at a Windows-only farm can easily run the executable and have the latest version running on their developer box. Not all companies allow you to have multiple boxes, and many force you (via draconion security measures) to only run windows with certain software installed. Postgres NEEDS a user-friendly Win32 installer, perhaps with a similar info-item like MySQL has. This is a MUST for companies to start to take notice. Then, a PHB can even play with it and like it.
2. Marketing. While open-source, MySQL has a nice marketing engine behind it. A beautiful webpage, online and PRINT adds, and magazine and newspaper articles CONSTANTLY writing about the "little database that could" every few week / months. Postgres needs to start getting the word out, and hype it a little. Just because a product is superior, doesn't mean it will thrive. There are tons of examples out there: Beta vs VHS, Windows vs OS X, etc. For a database to be used, it must be allowed and "signed off" by a manager of some sort. Most will take reputation + support + "ooh, nice webpage" over a product that might be better, but they know nothing about it.
3. More management tools. MySQL has a couple out there that look and run great; very professional looking. This earns respect from PHB's, as they are easily misled by such niceties.
Don't get me wrong. MySQL is nice, but doesn't have what I need most (Views, triggers, etc). Postgres may not be perfect, but I think it is superior. We just need to get the word out to those "not in the know".
You're comparing apples to oranges. How many lines of code are in Windows' kernel? Or alternatively, how many lines of code make up the Debian installation on my system (my desktop is KDE if that makes a difference).
Either you have poor network security (i.e. your SQL Server installation was directly exposed to the internet), or poor network administration (i.e. your network was already infected by Slammer).
We had an incompetent admin and were vulnerable to Slammer for over a year on four major DB servers at our colo facility. Even though our new admin compared the firewall to sieve, it was still secure enough to protect us. I think we were vrey lucky, but I find it hard to believe that you can bring up SQL Server in a corporate environment and have it infected by Slammer before you get chance to patch it. Something's seriously wrong there.
> There *is* one thing that MySQL is good at and that is performance.
Whoa. MySQL is only good at "performance" under very simplistic use cases (single table selects, low insert/update load). Which describes a web board, but not that many real world applications. I'm sure this is one of the perceptions that the guy is fighting with -- that "MySQL is teh fasterest", when in fact with their applicaiton which is obviously designed for real DB servers, it isn't.
There's nothing as gratifying when working on a project as realizing that you've built such a solid, engineered solution that you can throw out five layers of error checking that test for conditions that you can rigorously prove cannot exist. Those are the sorts of speedups that PostgreSQL has been undergoing, and even if I didn't like PostgreSQL as a product, I would certainly commend their design team for such excellent work.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The business press doesn't talk much about postgresql - but companies, vendors, and skilled database developers & administrators are.
It has plenty of momentum, and is clearly ready and getting used in a wide variety of applications now.
MySQL does have an incredible amount of momentum, more than most products out there. However, it'll have to be completely rewritten from the ground up before it really becomes a threat to commercial products. That will probably take years to get right. Postgresql on the other hand is just filling in feature gaps - and has a much more evolutionary upgrade path ahead.
Nobody bought Sybase. Learn history.
MS and Sybase bought Watcom SQL Server to joinly develop new product. After some internal fight companies split up and released thier own SQL Servers.
Anyway MS SQL Server 7.0 was a total rewrite of old Watcom code.
I know there is a huge hate of MS products on Slashdot but most of the people just don't know the SQL Server well to comment on it.
Especially amazing to see people compare MS SQL Server to MySQL. No database developer worth his salt will put any critical data into MySQL.
MySQL has it's niche but it is not in the same league as SQL Server or Oracle. Access maybe,FoxPro, BerkleyDB are competitors of MySQL.
I wouldn't bet it. The idea of "heavy peer review" and "many eyes" doesn't play out in the real world. There are less qualified people looking at the MySQL code than any of the closed source products. The idea that a user of product is going to browse through the source code looking for bugs ia laughable. No user has the time for that.
"Standard SQL" can't be relied on to do all that much, and what it does is slowwww. From server to server, you can't rely on syntaxes being the same for things like subqueries, LIKE statements or even cross-database selects (which some servers allow and others don't). So while yes, you CAN write cross-database compatible script, your best bet for performance is to optimize for one.
And much of the speed boost you see in using SQL instead of a flat file is in the compilation of stored procedures. Which is why MySQL is so much faster than SQL Server in some tests. If you "SELECT date, article FROM Table1", MySQL is great. But if you "SELECT t1.article, min(t2.date) FROM Table1 t1 CROSS JOIN Table2 t2 on t1.table1id = t2.table2id WHERE table1.tableenum IN (2,3,1) GROUP BY t1.article", your best bet is to compile that into a stored procedure and use MS SQL or one of its companions.
See, cross-platform, cross-product methodologies are a good practice in theory. But if you know that none of your clients is likely to use an alternative platform or alternative server, you may as well write them the best software you can. You can't do that without breaking compatibility.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
"Microsoft SQL Server 2000." The word Microsoft in it outta clue you in.
Oh--"mickysoft?" What is this, a high school Linux user group in 1998?
from the article Some think Microsoft has bitten off more than it can chew with Yukon. "This product lacks focus," said Betsy Burton, analyst with the Gartner Group. "They're doing all sorts of stuff with it, first scalability was the issue, then XML support, then .Net activities, and then business intelligence and now security. The gut issue is, what is the purpose of this release? As a team trying to develop a product you have to know where you're going," she said
.NET, which really has not clarified itself much in the last two years.
Betsy clearly has no clue regarding the SQL Server product's evolution, capabilites or how these are going to change with Yukon. In fact she seems to have a very limited grasp of significance of the Yukon's release.
Unlike Oracle, SQL Server has basically hovered in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" pattern for the last 5 years. For the most part it has delivered a decent database platform, that was for a while more cost effective than oracle. Those who have used SQL Server extensively know it's limitations. Betsy's arguments about "product lacking focus" are rediculous. That's primarily becuase Yukon seeks to rectify a large number of the problems and limitations of SQL Server 2k. It's really very difficult to provide a "focused" look at a product that is changing so significantly. In fact, her complaint is very similar to those that were uttered as Microsfot was trying to formalize the definition of
It would seem that Betsy is looking for are a few jargon sound bytes that can be displayed on a single powerpoint slide. That slide would then be shown to a bunch of people who nod their head and say, "that's a sound strategic driection". Big idea's aren't sound bytes.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, they are attempting to be ambitious with Yukon. A lot of new plumbing is going in, as well as a refinement and crystalization of the current features such as SQL -> XML queries, DTS, Replication, the integration of a first class programming language among others. These are all features that we've needed for a long time.
Yukon represents a significant change in the world of RDMS's on the Windows platform. It's sad to see that influential groups such as Gartner can't recognize or have the vision to see how much (and for the better) things are going to change for SQL Server 2K shops.
Tsk, always giving MS the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft has almost ALWAYS "slipped" on major projects in the past, usually be anything up to several years. This is nothing new, and has never implied that they were about to produce a quality product in the past.
Microsoft don't "slip" on deadlines: they deliberately start out providing fake, earlier deadlines to the press. So they'll say for example "next SQL server will be out in 2004". This has two effects: (a) companies that might have been thinking about using the gap to produce a competing system consequently don't, "next great MS version will be out too soon" they say. And (b) clients using an older version that need to upgrade to something 'bigger' think "hey, next great MS version will be out soon enough, let's wait for that rather than switch to Oracle".
Then the deadline approaches and Microsoft says "whoops we're slipping". But too late for the many who've now made the decision, so they just wait out the extra time and stick with MS.
Come on, this is an OLD game from MS. Don't be so naive. Those who don't study history ..
I agree with you to an extent, although moreso for Postgres than MySQL, the latter of which is insulting and not worthy of being labelled a real database, imho.
I also think that this is exactly why open source is such a threat to the big products like Oracle and SQL Server. The big databases certainly do have a lot of features. Certainly they're capable of much more than open source products. But if you think about it really, how many of the users actualy use all of those features?
The places where OSS products can cut into the market are with all of those customers who have a big, expensive commercial database that they really don't need. If you only use your databases for inserting, updating, selecting, stored procedures and having some integrity built in, and of course if you have an admin with some idea of what they're doing, then something like postgresql may be perfectly reasonable for your needs. It's not a top level database but for what it does, it does well and just as reliably as anything else on the market. It may not be the best choice if you have extreme load conditions or whatnot, but a lot of commercial vendor's customers don't.
This is what the commmercial vendors really have to watch out for. Although most OSS databases don't offer the breadth of features, they are starting to be viable substitutes for the majority of database tasks. It's certainly possible that the commercial vendors might suddenly find a lot of their customers disappearing from underneath them.
Isn't Slashdot run on MySQL?
And Microsoft.com runs on IIS -- but that doesn't mean that IIS is everything to everyone; nor does the fact that Slashdot runs on MySQL mean that MySQL is good for everyone.
MySQL is really good at a really limited subset of queries. If MySQL is all you know, then your ignorance is bliss in that you don't know all the other wonderful things a real RDBMS can do for you since MySQL never offered them to you.
Once you've used a real database system, you could never go back to the chains of MySQL.
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The real problem is not so much that the Yukon date has slipped, it's that Whidbey (The next version of Visual Studio.NET and the .NET framework) is slipping with it. For who knows what reason, Microsoft decided that these products must be released together.
.NET Framework.
.NET architect's blog posting going briefly into some of the details of hosting and why SQL Server is so important to Whidbey.
The reason they must ship together is because SQL Server is the guinea pig for Whidbey's new hosting interfaces (running an instance of the Framework inside your own non-managed application). This is not a trivial addition to the
Check out this
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