I just received following “NOT FOR SALE” subscription of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN. As a MVP, MCT I already have free subscription to MSDN and TechNet. I plan to give away this free subscription to someone who is need of the same or can use it the best.
You can win the subscription. I will pick the winner of the subscription on 25th of the July. Which means you have 10 days to take part. I will decide the winner with the help of fellow MVPs and subject matter experts.
You need to answer one simple question: Why SQL Server is better than any other RDBMS applications?
Leave your answer as a comment to this thread, or post it on your blog with links to this blog post. To avoid spams and bad entries, I will moderate all the comments. If you have left comment and it is not visible send me the same comment in email pinal “at” sqlauthority.com . All the entries should be there before 25th July. I will announce winner before 1st of August.
Update: Due to overwhelming response of the contest, the evaluation of the winner is still going on. I will announce very soon who won the subscription.
Reference : Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
154 Comments. Leave new
SQL Server is better than any over RDBMS in my opinion for the following reasons:
> Easy to learn, install and manage.
>It’s feature loaded and therefor more cost effective, and a better choice for companies for reducing total cost of ownership and increasing ROI even for SMB’s.
>It’s from Microsoft and therefor provide excellent use of CLR which allows it to integrate more effectively with .Net Framework, increasing the effectiveness, compatibility and integration with all of the MS programming languages.
>Due to the popularity of the product, and largely the whole Microsoft product lineup, the community is overwhelming and bristling with skilled people, and a brilliant support team from Microsoft, namely CSS and PFE’s.
>SQL is documented excellently i.e. KB articles, MSDN, techNet and the wealth of info to be found on discussion groups and forums.
And SQL is also breaking grounds with BI solutions and with new releases coming up like PDW and datacentre, it’s really maturing even more into a total enterprise solution forming the backbone of international companies, and even new MS solutions like SCOM, OCS, SharePoint.
I could give hundreds of reasons why SQL is the best RDBMS, from the feature rich offering to the enterprise class scale which it is used. What is really comes down to is not even a feature built in but instead the community behind it.
Thousands of experts, bloggers and users in all forms share and contribute extensively. We spend saturdays getting together to teach and learn from each other. You can ask a question on twitter with a tag #sqlhelp and have industry experst respond faster than any vendor specific support could ever hope to.
Database work is often a solitary task and I think all around having a community who openly communicates and helps on and other makes it the best.
In short…Its the people as much as the product that makes it the best!
SQL Server is better in many ways than other RDBMS. Price wise it is expensive than MYSQL(which is free) but way cheaper than Oracle. Licencing options are great and also you get the BI Stack bundled with the engine with the same licence.
But the best feature that stands out for me when SQL server is compared to other RDBMS is the documentation(Books Online) and the community[Look at you, you spend probably half of your week helping others for FREE]. The other thing is Microsoft’s willingness to invest in building a community and always taking feedback and comes up with a new and improved set of features and deprecate the poor features.
BTW I disagree with most of the comments above that says Installation of SQL Server is easy. They make it looks like easy for marketing but it is misleading. It has the worst possible default options and users click next next and done with install and end up with all kinds of problem later.
SQL Server is better than other RDBMS for the simple fact it is a great value for money enterprise solution.
My favourite features of the database engine are >
1) Service broker messaging system
2) XML datatypes and XML manipulation
3) SQL 2008’s compression functionality
I love the fact that within the licence, you also get >
1) Integration Services (ETL Platform)
2) Reporting Services (Reporting Suite)
3) Analysis Services (Business Intelligence)
It’s a feature rich stack of technologies that I hope one day to master.
Community support through newsgroups , blogs , sites and events is excellent for SQL Server. It has a great following and help is always on hand.
rich
I don’t know whether it IS better than any other dbms out there. I’ve worked with DB2, IMS, Informix, and Oracle, but never SQL Server. Perhaps if I win, I can use the MSDN subscription to find out why everyone thinks it’s so great.
I haven’t used many RDBMS’s, but…
I’ve used Oracle… I want to smash in my monitors.
I’ve used mysql… I want to bash my face on the keyboard.
I’ve used Access… and it has lots of quirks.
I’ve used SQLite… and it didn’t seem like i could find help with my ‘should be obvious’ problems.
I’ve only used SQL Server 2005 & 2008, and so far I have yet to hit a problem that I can’t solve quickly by poking around myself or searching around the community. I spend almost no time managing my server or dealing with sql problems, and most of my time writing code.
SQL Server is better because:
Security – Microsoft helps keep us updated and secure.
Scaleable – Works for small tasks, to exponentially large tasks.
Ease of use – All the tools you need, in one box.
Talent pool – There is a large pool of people to tap when I need to hire a new DBA.
Support – I can always find them when I need them. This is the most important thing in my opinion.
depends by what standard sql server is being compared to the comparators.
Sql Server is the best choice of RDBMS not just because of its ease of use, flexibility and affordable price, but also because it is a data source designed to work with Microsoft Office applications. Microsoft Office is used by technical and non-technical personnel alike and is an incredibly powerful and popular choice of software.
Sql Server will not only import and export data from MS Office, it can also be set up with native SQL queries without another IDE or compiling any code. Obviously, if the choice is made to make processes that are compiled, SQL server, like its competitors, offers that flexibility. The real value of SQL Server is the speed with which very powerful BI applications can be built and quickly prepared for display to business users.
SQL Server is better than other RDBMS application simply because it was created by MICROSOFT. Microsoft produced better and the best products in the world.
Well,
SQL Server is one of the best complete RDBMS platforms ever available. Its got whatever one needs and more,which is ever stable and trustworthier than before. The community help available for this piece of technology is unprecedented.
With the introduction of MDS, Powershell,Filestream has made it unparalleled relative to the tools out there.
SQL Server is like most RDMS systems, a database engine but what make it better than other RDMS systems (especially SQL 2008 onwards) are new features and other bells and whistles it comes with.
Here are the few:
1. Easy integration with Microsoft Operating systems.
2. East integration with world’s most common database: Spreadsheet, microsoft excel in particular and power pivot has significantly enhanced its value.
3. User friendly interface
4. Easy to create maintenance plans.
5. Integrated Security (windows authentication): This definitely help streamline server access based on Active directory policies and groups.
6. Mixed Authentication: Not only it gives the option to use windows authentication, it allows other applications to authenticate based on username and password
7. Disaster recovery: SQL Server is very easy to restore after a disaster (proper backup and recovery strategy needs to be implemented) as compared to other RDMS. All you need is File system restore followed by system state and then restore databases from backup. I have been involved in DR for a lot systems and doing DR on a SQL Server is much easier than any other RDMS system. Other benefits include Failover Clustering and Transaction Replication
8. Licensing: The licensing structure of SQL Server is much better as compared to other RDMS systems. Other RDMS systems have a very complex licensing structure which comes out to be much costly than SQL Server.
9. SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS): As compare to other RDMS systems tools, SSMS is the best tool for a developer or a DBA.
10. SQL Server Business Intelligence: Business Intelligence in SQL Server has come a long way and has evolved so much. It is one of the best if not the best in the market at the moment.
Since SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server Analysis Services and SQL Server Reporting Services comes with the SQL Server license, customer doesn’t need to spend extra money on these additional tools, instead that money can be spend on something else e.g. upgrade SAN, user training.
11. Virtualisation
12. Administering and Monitoring: SQL Server 2008 R2 has really scored high in its new administration and monitoring tools. It has made the life of a DBA (even accidental DBA) a lot easier.
13. Backup Compression: Even though it is a new feature in SQL Server 2008, it has really helped companies to upgrade to the new version and speeding a lot (if not all) of the backup operations.
14. Data Encryption: SQL Server 2008 provides a lot of encryption options to encrypt data and code. Transparent Data Encryption has really safe guarded some of the crucial data movement operations our company.
Sql Server is a very good platform for developers because it can scale from a small version all the way up to an enterprise level. For developers, you only have to learn one RDBMS platform and your project will easily scale as you need it without having to adapt to different RDBMS as your performance requiremens change. It also has a very complete tool set for developers with built-in support in Visual Studio.
Great idea for a contest! Here’s my list:
• Approachability – SQL Server is a much more intuitive platform to begin management with comparative to competing technology.
• Affordability – The cost to implement the SQL Server platform is typically much lower.
• Dependability – SQL Server provides many high-availability features that solidify an enterprise’s ability to rely on the environment to deliver consistent, always-on results.
• Scalability – Features like clustering and replication allow SQL Server to scale better than many entrenched platforms.
• Extensibility – Perhaps one of the best features, SQL Server is very extendable. Features like CLR integration, close ties to the operating system, Azure (cloud database services), and integrated security controls makes SQL Server easy to extend based on your enterprise’s needs.
• Flexibility – SQL Server can be used in narrow-focus platforms, such as mobile devices, or in very broad, multi-tiered enterprise applications.
•Simplicity – SQL Server is arguably the most simple enterprise database platform to administer and develop.
SQL Server is the best database because it has the widest compatibility, broadest client appeal and most compelling new features. SQL Server can be used anywhere from small embedded desktop applications to large distributed database farms allowing applications to scale better than any other DBMS on the planet. SQL Server continues to add new features like table valued parameters, GIS data types, streaminsight and data mining are but a few examples of how SQL Server has been extended to meet customer needs while still providing outstanding performance and ease of development making SQL Server better than any other DBMS out there.
definitely Sql Server is hell lot better than other databases i have used like My Sql and Oracle.
Following are the features i think contribute to above:
1) More user friendly GUI
2) Most of the drivers required are already installed for windows
3) Largely used as commercial database in most of the companies
4) index able views
5) Graphical view designer
6) Computed Columns
7) ACID Compliance
8) Merge operator to perform update,insert and delete in single query
9) Replication
10) Can program stored procedures/functions in multiple languages
11) Can define custom aggregate functions
12) Can write Set/Table returning functions that can be used in FROM clause
13) Various Date Time supported data types including time zone also(DateTimeOffset date type)
14) Windowing function
15) Advanced Database Tuning Wizard
16) Maintenance Plan Wizard
SQL Server is better because:
– it integrates better with other microsoft products, including developer tools and office products.
– it provides scalability; from ‘hidden’ single user /desktop systems through to terrabyte farms.
– it is versatile; it includes not only traditional RDBMS features but also OLAP, Reporting, ETL, etc.
– it is easy to install and administrate and manage; does not require a DBA
– it continues to grow as a product, with each new major release adding significant additional features
Basically, it does the job without getting in the way.
SQL Server a better RDBMS
1. Very User Friendly in every aspects may it be installation / usability / Maintainbility
2. Has evolved very nicely along with every version and is now loaded with all the features which an ideal RDBMS system should have.
3. Being evolved as database, now SQL Server has spread its tentacles in fields of BI with its tools SSIS / SSAS / SSRS, SSIS today is considered a very beautiful tool for data migration.
In addition there are many more features / attributes which makes the SQL Server the best and cannot be mentioned in single comment, but surely in comming days SQL Server will be the best.
What Makes SQL Server different is:
if you didn’t t bother about it, it will keep running as a Loyal Horse
if you took care of it, it will be a Winged Horse
1 Drivers are already installed on Windows (integrate seamlessly with desktop apps)
2 Lot of commercial application support
3 Graphical View Designer (e.g. you can see tables and select fields drag lines to do joins) included no additional charge
4 Computed Columns
5 WITH CUBE
6 Windowing Functions OVER..PARTITION BY
7 Advanced Database Tuning Wizard
8 Maintenance Plan Wizard