This isn’t one of those “why my RDBMS is better than your RDBMS” comparisons. One of the initial obstacles a DBA on one system encounters is learning where features of your system live or reside on the other (less familiar to you) system. Let’s approach this feature comparison by taking SQL Server and mapping its features back into Oracle. This comparison will not be 100% inclusive of either system, but it will show the SQL Server to Oracle mapping, using what you can see in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

The Object Explorer pane in SSMS serves as a good frame of reference to do the reverse mapping. I could have used Oracle and mapped over to SQL Server, but two reasons negated that. The first is where do you find a convenient one-stop interface in Oracle? Definitely not in SQL*Plus, and it would be hard to argue that Database Control’s interface is anywhere near as utilitarian as SSMS. The other is that most readers of this article are coming from an Oracle background, and we want to take what we know about Oracle and see how that fits or works in MSSQL.

The versions used here are Oracle 10gR2 (platform does not matter) and SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2003 (also R2). There are some slight differences between MSSQL 2005 and 2008, but as far as the Windows OS is concerned, it won’t be an issue. Oracle 10g is still in wide use as is MSSQL 2003/Server 2003, so the comparisons made here will work for most of the people most of the time.

View article

Back to DBAsupport.com