1.Oracle was the first SQL-based database: A very positive thing ORACLE as product and company has is that they keep their leadership in the database industry. In 1979 was released the first database system based on the standard of “Structured Query Language”. There are people thinking that SQL is a Microsoft’s standard but the first company who used this standard was ORACLE for its first RDBMS and the pioneer in the database industry.

2.The first database system which supports XML: In 1999 XML was in the mouth of many web developers and programmers but the first database system which could make a support for XML was precisely ORACLE. Also, talking about web developing, ORACLE was the first web database system since 1977. In this moment all web pages were completely statics and ORACLE moved the web developing to a new dimension.

3.The first RDBMS available for Linux: Really ORACLE wasn’t the first database system available for Linux but at least was the first proprietary RDBMS with a version for Linux. Really ORACLES is a cross-platform database system which can be easily integrated with different versions Linux Operating System. It was a wonderful thing because historically proprietary software doesn’t have a good relation with the Open Source Community. ORACLE demonstrated its leadership expanding its horizons and leaving all kind of stupid thinking that affect the business.

4.The first database able to support symmetric multiprocessing: You can see that Microsoft Certifications spend many pages talking about symmetric multiprocessing and a lot of things abut that. But ORACLE was the first database system able to support this advanced technology. ORACLE not only was the first but currently is the leader managing the most reliable products that can manage million of registries with a unique availability of your business data during all the year.

5. ORACLE supports more platforms than any other database system: The list is very wide and ORACLE supports all of them. No matter if you have a server running on Apple MAC OS x Server or a Hewlett Packard HP-UX: PA-RISC, Itanium, with ORACLE you won’t have any problem. Also it works with several kinds of Mainframes and servers in almost all the Operating Systems developed on earth.

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If something good Bill Gates has is a wonderful capacity to negotiate and make business. This capacity had lead him to be the richest man in America and also have a company (Microsoft Corporation) which is still the leader in the software and database industry around the globe.(well if you take out of the equation Oracle for DB)

There are many free and open source solutions in the market which are widely used among web developers and programmers around the world. But in the case of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, we should recognize that this tool is good, but the big question is why other good database solutions haven’t the market’s leadership Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has? I personally think that Bill Gates and Microsoft have the talent of sell even bad products to a very expensive price per license. I really can’t understand that. The unique thing I see is that Microsoft Corporation has an amazing business strategy that makes them keep the world wide market leadership. In this article I would like to explain some of the main reasons why I think Microsoft SQL Server is just the result of a good business strategy.

1.Microsoft’s is the leader around the world: People commonly want to use what is popular and what everybody uses. But naturally Microsoft continue its leadership in the market and believe it or not this is one of the main reasons people use Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or previous versions instead use ORACLE, MySQL Server, Postgres or any other RDBMS system.

2.Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has more certified professionals than any other products: It something very critical. If you have a problem in your company or business, you will need that your database system can be correctly and easy supported by a certified professional. But if most professional are Microsoft Certified professional you mandatory will have to use Microsoft’s products in your company or business. It is one of the main reasons Microsoft continue leading the market. They invest a lot of money providing all kind of certifications in order they can have more and more professionals who become experts using their products and new technologies, so more and more Microsoft professionals are needed each year in the demanding and growing database industry.

3.Their promotion is more targeted and affective: One of the best things Microsoft knows to do is a good and targeted promotion of each of their products. Microsoft SQL Server is not an exception of that. Microsoft invests many thousand dollars each year in promotion in order these products can remain freshly in the mind of consumers.

1.Atomicity: Atomicity refers to “all or nothing”. In other words, when your database is updated “all or nothing” of this update should be available to anyone. There are many things to consider for atomicity. Something very important is that each update produced in the database is called transaction and the atomicity of the database should be maintained despite of a system failure or something like that.

2.Consistency: It is the second property of the ACID properties and guarantee that each change that is produced in an instance should be consistent with other values in the same instance. The consistency property has the mission in the database system of keep the integrity of the information in the database. In other words, consistency makes your data stable and reliable. Also if any infraction occurs, consistency property will report this infraction and should notify to user what is going on.

3.Isolation: Isolation is something simple and complex at the same time. But in general sense the isolation define the time (when) and the way (how) the changes produced by one operation are visible to other operation. Isolation has some levels or degrees (from degree 0 to degree 3) and each degree make a different action. Isolation is very important when you are working with several users in the same database. For instance, if two people are writing in the same table and save at the same time, Isolation property should work as both people 1 and people 2 are working as a unique user and none of them overwrite the first information saved in the database.

4.Durability: The durability is something very important for each transaction because once a chance is produced should never be lost. The durability property has the mission to recover each transaction update despite of the system fails. As database administrator you should consider and have in mind some elements related to durability features, this is 100% key for any professional in the database industry. These are: If the data software failure the durability feature should recover up to the most recent successfully transaction. Also it will happen in some other scenarios such as after an application software failure, a CPU failure, a disk failure and many other situations.

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There are many database professionals who haven’t a deep knowledge about how database industry standard’s works. The worst part is that many of them think that there’s only a unique standard or at least if there is anything more is poorly used. I know that when you see that you are going to change your thinking abut this matter and increase your knowledge radically. Let’s now see just some of them because the database industry is full of several standards but we are going to mention only the most popular.

SQL-92: This standard is the last update of SQL database query language and contains a lot of new and improved database features. This standard is widely used in several systems around the world and was originally developed by “INCITS” which is a committee dedicate to develop different kind of database standards for commands and syntax that can be able to operate within database systems.

JDBC: It stands for “Java Database Connectivity” and consists in an API (Application Programming Interface) for Java and establishes how can be accessed a database by end-users. This standard is also very used and provides some querying and updating options in the relation databases realm.

SQLJ: This standard was originally created for a group or consortium made up members of Sun Microsystems and database vendors. SQLJ stands for (Structured Query Language - Java) and is and important standard in the database industry.

ADO.NET: This standard is widely used in our days and the owner of this is Microsoft Corporation. ADO.NET provides all the techniques in order clients can access to databases under this standard. ADO.NET works as a copy of the real database in order you don’t require be actively connected to the database. Microsoft has been working very hard with this standard and there are many developers who are currently working with it. Most of them are .NET Framework developers and programmers that are currently working with ASP.NET.

Java Data Objects (JDO): The Java Data Object is a database standard which belongs to Sun Java Community. It works as an API and works with relational and objects databases. This standard is very secure, easy to use and provide a lot of functions and features that are improved and updated very frequently.

ODMG 3.0: The Object Management Group develops this database standard. It is a consortium of professionals interested in relation mapping products and is developing several improvements to get a good position in the database industry. ODMG 3.0 just wants integrate several object programming languages such as C++, Java and many others. Also with this model you will be able to read the same database from Smalltalk, Java or C++.

On the other hand, we are not going to talk about a product, brand or type of software. I would like talk about some features and characteristics I need to increase the productivity of my business. Which are the things that can help me to increase my yearly revenue? Which is the propel technology for my company? It is what I want to evaluate and measure. You can’t manage what you are not able to measure and that’s why it is very important for your company or business. Now I am going to show you some aspects you should evaluate and must have your company if you want an integral business solution, that only proper companies professional involved in the database industry can provide.

1.Your database solution should be scalable: When you use a database server solution you should think in the scalability of your information. Your data and meta-data should be easily moved from one system to other or from previous version to an update. It is something very important in order you can avoid all kind of future problems with your business information.

2.This solution should provide you more revenue while your expenses don’t experience a major increasing: When you invest money in technology is because you are looking for a way to improve your business. This investment should be reflected in your revenue and it is why you should examine whether this solution provide you this or not.

3.Should be reliable: Reliability is something that must have your database solution. It is very important because all your data, information and transaction stored in tables should be something that you can trust 100%. When you manage sensible information and personal data such as bank account numbers, credit card numbers and others, your business worth a reliable database system that can provide the protection your information needs, this is well know around many companies working in the database industry.

4.Should increase your productivity: Your productivity should increase when you have a good database server solution that helps you to get a higher level in your business. Things will be easier, process will be done faster and the result will be a notable increasing of the productivity. That’s why you should select the solution that can run faster processes with a higher level of stability.

5.This solution should be available 24 hours a day: If your database server solution hasn’t the capacity of remain available all the time you should consider one that gives you the availability your business requires.

In first place, MySQL Server is a high quality and very robust database server. MySQL Server is widely used for web developers which are currently working with the scripting language PHP. If you ask some questions about MySQL to PHP developers you’ll notice a high satisfaction with this product as a database server. In many cases, MySQL has been a wonderful economic release because there are versions of MySQL Server that can be download it from its official website for free. It is a great advantage of use MySQL Server in your developing projects.

In second place, MySQL Server is an open source database server. It means that you can modify the code or join to some of the projects of contributors and developers of MySQL. If aren’t interested in be part of this community, your will receive the benefits of them anyway. As user of MySQL Server you can have all kind of documentation, tutorials, and technical support all the time. MySQL Server has a community of developers who are constantly improving this product and it is precisely something that benefits MySQL Server’s users.

The great importance of MySQL for the database industry can be measure in many different ways. There are several IT professionals and business men that use and promote the use of MySQL as the perfect alternative for their business. There are other reasons why people use MySQL Server in the database industry. One of these reasons is because there is a wide group of people around the world that aren’t interested in use any proprietary software such as Oracle or Microsoft because they think that using Microsoft SQL Server or ORACLE are interfering in their purpose based on the four liberties of the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Community around the world.

MySQL Server has been capable to satisfy the technological needs of a huge group of IT professionals, database administrators and web developers. Moreover, MySQL Server has a several training and certification programs that are helping many professionals to improve their capacities and increase their potential. MySQL Server official home page has a lot of projects, resources, ideas and documentation that contribute to the knowledge of database administration and developing. Finally I think that MySQL Server has made serious contributions to our world and the realm of database industry.

Positive things of Microsoft SQL Server 2008: There are many things and positive features I can mention about Microsoft SQL Server 2008. It is a wonderful RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) that is commonly known around the world. For many people Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has become a standard of the database industry because is the most used RDBMS in the world. Not matter if you live in Asia, Europe or United States. If you say you know use or develop in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 you probably can gain the respect and acknowledgement of everybody. Be certified by Microsoft is a great thing in our days and this is the main reason why many IT professionals are studying hard and preparing for the next certification exam, it is vital part of the database industry professionals.

On the other hand, Microsoft always releases news certifications, courses and exams that help IT professional increase their level of knowledge in the new and upcoming technologies. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is the RDBMS product which offer the highest number of certified IT professionals to support all kind of implementation on any type of projects.

Some disadvantages: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is excellent as a database server and this new version is very competitive with ORACLE but this product is too expensive. That’s why a lot of developers around the world prefer use other RDBMS such as Postgres and MySQL Server. It is a problem for many people who probably desire use Microsoft SQL Server 2008 but can’t use it for budget reasons. Another great disadvantage is that this product can’t be modified or copied because is a proprietary software. Doing so could lead in legal problems or piracy. If you compare that with open source software it is a real problem to distribute, copy or modify this software and it is probably one of the main disadvantages of Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

Should it become an open source product - well that is the question that all the database industry is aking now a days? There are many experts that agree with the idea that Microsoft should transform most of their proprietary products in open source software. Evidently it includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 with all its components and features. I personally think that what Microsoft should do is decrease the prices per license of this amazing product. On the other hand, Microsoft provides many tips, tricks and useful documentation that can be used for developers and programmers who are active users of SQL Server 2008.

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1.The case of Microsoft SQL Server 2008: Microsoft SQL Server has too many advantages over its competitors and also has releases fabulous products that are using thousand of database servers around the globe. The basic strategy of Microsoft SQL Server is keeping trained the major number of IT Professional in order they can support the database needs of the market. It is an important thing Microsoft has different to their competitors. Even though Oracle, MySQL and Postgres have several certification programs, none of them are in the same level of Microsoft. The consequence of that is that Microsoft SQL Server probably could be the worst Database server but if they have more IT professionals and Database administrators trained they will continue leading the database industry market during a very long time.

2.The case of MySQL Server: If you are a PHP web developer I am completely sure you love MySQL. This wonderful database server has the capability to develop several transaction and non-transactional database especially designed for your web applications. It is a reputable product which belongs to the open source community around the world. MySQL Server has a lot of important features that make your databases more secure, reliable and with the availability you always need.
3.The case of ORACLE: Oracle is a leader in the database industry around the world. There’s no other database server with the features of Oracle. There are many IT professionals trying to compare Oracle with Microsoft SQL Server. In my personal opinion Oracle is as good as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle contains some relevant features Microsoft SQL Server doesn’t have and vice versa. Furthermore, beside the Oracle’s database engine there are other interesting products from Oracle which are a complement for your database system throughout your business, corporation, institution or web developing project.
4.The case of Postgres: According to the opinion of many developers of the Open Source Community and the Free Software Foundation Postgres is the best database server on earth. I really don’t know why they say that. I can say that the most popular among web developers is MySQL but I can’t assure that Postgres is the best database of the world. What I can tell you that Postgres is an amazing product that can be used in many desktop and web projects. Currently there is a strong community of developers improving the capacity of this product and during 2009 you will see more new releases from Postgres helping the database industry to grow better and stronger.

The database industry has been since it’s begging an industry that was created more for the need to the consumers, than for the main idea of creating a profitable business. But now a days, things have changed a lot, making the database field a very competitive and lucrative business where the big players each year make billions of dollars thanks to the huge demand for their products, applications and solutions.

So who really uses Databases now a day? Well the easier question will be: who doesn’t produce database now a days!  Database are used by government, profit organizations liek companies, , and non profit organizations. The database tecnnology has expand to many branches and services, including the medical field, the lawy, news technical, etc. Where ever you see now a days databases are present and play a massive and very serious role in everyday economy around the world. From a hospital, to the Army, to NASA, to the UN to Ebay. Databases rule the world and store all the info about us, about what we have, about our health, our criminal records, etc.

That’s why when we talk about the database industry we need to understand cleary that this industry is more than complex and it is just young, the real begginings where just a few years ago, and now we are witnessesin first row to be able to see amazing changes and challenges that this industry is going to tackle in the next years. From the open source solutions created by the community to the giants of Microsoft and Oracle, to the potential involment in the future of new players like Google, the database market is open and the market is hungry for faster solution, with more security and more flexibility.