Whilst by choice I spend a lot of my time working with open source and vendor-neutral technologies, I do have a lot of history with things like Microsoft ASP, and from time to time I find myself working on projects based on closed technologies. It is one of those projects that I’m working on this weekend. For their own reasons, the client needed this web app to be built using classic ASP and SQL Server 2000.
I probably ought to state now that I’m not sure if the problem I have here is one of vendor tie-in, or simply one of it-sucks-to-have-to-develop-with-SQL-Server, or if in fact both are the same thing. I should also point out that I’m not particularly trying to make a case for open source vs anything else, but am rather recounting my experience with that. But I digress. As I was going to be doing a lot of database work and therefore would need to use SQL Server’s Enterprise Manager and Query Analyser tools, I fired up my Windows XP box at the back of the desk (I had to dust it off) and worked from that. It seemed simplest, and would let the technology for the most part get out of the way.
Unknown Error
I’d been working away for a while before I’d realised I couldn’t query any of the tables in Enterprise Manager without an Unknown Error message coming back. Irritating to say the least, so I rebooted and tried again. Same story. I tried telling Enterprise Manager to forget all about the server it was connected to, then reconnected and tried again. Nothing. So I reinstalled all the SQL Server tools. Again, no joy. I became grumpy and went and made more coffee.
After a bit of googling, it became apparent that the fault could be fixed by upgrading MDAC to version 2.8. MDAC is basically just a bundle of database drivers, XML parsers and such. Silly old me only had version 2.7, so I downloaded the 2.8 installer, which promptly failed to install. Googling on that problem found a bunch of suggested solutions, none of which worked for me. Enterprise Manager is still broken.
Every Possible Chance
To be honest, I’m not surprised by the situation. The database toolset hasn’t really been updated in at least the six or so years that I’ve been using SQL Server. And the tools sucked back then too. The thing that really annoys me is that I’m running a XP workstation logged onto a Windows Active Directory domain, connecting to a Windows Server 2003 server running SQL Server 2000, and it doesn’t work. I can’t think what greater chance of success I could give it. On top of that, the killer is that there’s nothing I can do about it. I guess I could try reinstalling Windows XP on my workstation, but that holds no guarantees and would eat a considerable amount of my day.
Microsoft have a new version of SQL Server around the corner, which I was thrilled to hear came with a brand new toolset. Looks like even MS realised their tools were crap. However, on digging deeper (and I hope someone can tell me I’m wrong) it appears that these tools are not stand-alone as present, but are integrated into Visual Studio.NET. I can imagine the meeting that made that decision.
Comparing SQL Server with MySQL
The database server I work with most of the time is MySQL. The only real justification that can be brought for comparing the likes of SQL Server and MySQL is that they are both common choices for web applications. If you’re developing your web app on a Microsoft platform, SQL Server is really the only choice unless your app is hefty enough to require an Oracle solution. SQL Server is actually a really good product (its tools aside). It’s a robust, scaleable, transactional beast of a server that you can hang some pretty serious enterprise-level applications off. It doesn’t compete with Oracle when you’ve got serious numbers of users, but for the SME it’s perfect.
MySQL on the other hand only has a fraction of the features available in SQL Server. Although there’s some good stuff coming, the current stable release doesn’t have views, stored procedures, or even subqueries. But, it’s fast, light, and perfect for web applications. Once stored procs and subqueries make it into the stable release, there’s no holding it back. Most importantly, however, there’s no vendor tie-in. MySQL is open source – the result of which is that anyone can come along and write a fully featured set of development tools for it. Even on OS X, which is a fairly obscure platform in the scheme of things, I can find several robust MySQL admin tools to work with. If I come across a bug in one, I can switch to another.
Tie-in
It’s the simple fact that vendor tie-in reduces the number of options when things go wrong that makes it a very hard business decision to take. Choose product A and be reliant on Company A when things go wrong. Choose product B and have the choice of going to Company B, X, Y or Z, or hiring a developer to fix it for you, or trying out a new release or … the number of options are large. Throw into the mix that product A costs thousands, and product B is free, and it becomes a no-brainer.
Comments
That said, yes Enterprise Manager could be seriously overhauled. Some windows that hold a lot of information can’t even be resized.
1) having a problem with an install isn’t necessarily indicative of a bad product. Open source software suffers the same problems with installation and maintenance.
2) MySQL and Oracle fall down just as much, if not more so, with supplied toolsets. Picking on Microsoft just seems like poor sportsmanship.
3) there are numerous third-party tools instead of the Enterprise Manager or the Query Analyzer. Vendor tie-in at the tool level just doesn’t exist.
Now before I come off as all “MS Rulez!”, I’m all for open source and obviously MySQL has a large market share. I use it all the time. You just need to form a better argument. For example, offering a comparison between different databases and their tools would be a great article.
1) Agreed, a bad install isn’t indicative of a bad product. The problem occurs when you’re left with no where to turn.
2) Yes, all products have their shortcomings. It’s inevitable. However, if you’re reliant on a single vendor (like Microsoft) to solve your problem and they’re not interested, you’re stuffed.
3) Could you provide some links to third party tools you’d recommend? I’ve looked in the past and haven’t found anything that enables me to completely replace the standard tools.
Mac:
SQL4x
PC:
SQL Source Control 2003
SQL Query Tool in ODBC or ADO versions
TOAD
Best of luck! :)
Not quite true – SQL Server 2005 integrates with Visual Studio.Net 2005 or, if you don’t have Visual Studio.Net 2005, runs as a stand-alone app with it’s own copy of the Visual Studio.Net 2005 IDE framework.
Well, that’s how it works in the current beta, anyway.
Only got SQL Server 2005 tools on the machine? Not a problem.
Got SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio.Net 2005 on the machine? Even better – you get integration between the two, and get to do some really neat things like inline SQL stored procedure debugging.
That said, I can completely sympathise with your woes with SQL Server – having worked on it on LE web applications for the past two years, I’m well aware of many of it’s drawbacks and so forth. That said, mySQL would, quite frankly, fall in a smoldering heap if you tried to do half the things we do with SQL Server.
Ok, it’s not as big and meaty as Oracle, but for anything that doesn’t involve querying a quarter of a billion rows in one hit, it’s just as fast and almost as powerful.
Now if you owned Microsoft products you can even contact Microsoft support or Microsoft consultants and get them to help you. So this is not really “single vendor support”. Check out the sheer number of “Microsoft Partners” for any number of Microsoft products.
Open source or not, the choice has always been there, if paying for the support solves your problem which in a way same as paying Open Source solution vendors.
The new SQL Server is long time overdue, SQL2K in its time did well and as Steven said, does things that mySQL cannot match and rightfully so, mySQL is still in its infancy. Perhaps given enough time and support, it will one day grow up to be an enterprise class software.
Microsoft never said they dont support their products, except for products that have ended their lifetime ( which are still supported by their consultants – for a fee…)
Hope this enlightens you a little bit on the support which is available in the “non” Open Source world.
Cheers