Watch Your Database Dollar Go FurtherWatch Your Database Dollar Go Further

Even if you're not a customer of Microsoft's relational database and BI offerings, Microsoft has probably been good for you. Several of the heavyweight enterprise relational database and BI vendors have responded in some way to the price pressure Microsoft has exerted on them. They've released lighter-weight versions of products at lower price points and have included some BI capabilities in relational databases. Although Microsoft SQL Server 2005, set for release this summer, will cost about 25% more than the current version, its pricetag is still so much lower than that of competitors such as Oracle 10g and IBM DB2 that, because of expanded capabilities, it's pushing the market even further in the direction of better price/performance.

SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition on a Dell Server set the TPC-W benchmark (see www.tpc.org) for best e-commerce transaction price/performance ratio (although IBM sets the ad hoc query price/performance benchmark). Now Microsoft and Dell are partnering to package Dell servers with Express and Workgroup Editions.

Known by the code name Yukon for the past five years, SQL Server 2005 will feature in the Enterprise edition 64-bit processor support, "unlimited" scale and partitioning, advanced database mirroring with complete online and parallel operations, database snapshot capability and a report builder. Multicore processors will be licensed on the same basis as single-core processors, which is a direct challenge to Oracle's per-core pricing scheme.

SQL Server's Data Transformation Services will be reborn in SQL Server 2005 as Integration Services. Among other enhancements, it will support slowly changing dimensions, collaborative development and server scalability. Analysis Services is also being upgraded to include something Microsoft has been calling "one-click cubes." "It's more like three clicks," says Damien Georges, manager of database applications for Summit Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm in Boston that has been testing early releases of various SQL Server 2005 components. Despite Georges' mild objection to the feature's name, he says it's a great enhancement because it relieves analysts of some of the complexities of building OLAP cubes. Georges also reports performance improvements in the relational engine, attributing at least some of its increased speed to its use of the VARCHAR (variable character) data type for data the previous version handled as text.

Lucky for buyers, Microsoft is also under pressure. Some of its moves are probably, despite Microsoft's denial, a result of the company having to take its own medicine. The new Workgroup Edition, available now on the SQL Server 2000 code base, is clearly a response to the long-available Oracle Standard Edition One and IBM's DB2 Express. These limited-feature DBMSs from Oracle and IBM fill a niche for very small businesses. Moreover, the increasingly enterprise-ready open-source databases MySQL and PostgreSQL are encroaching on Microsoft's price-conscious market.