[postgis-users] PostGIS vs Oracle Spatial/MS SQL2008

[Simon Greener]

Paul,

(This is NOT a flame!)

> Oracle's wonderfully featureful, but if you're not already an Oracle
> shop, you'd be foolish to bring it in. It's difficult to learn and
> administer, which is why "Oracle DBA" is such a great job title to
> hold (job security!)

Still peddling this old canard, Paul, that Oracle is "difficult to learn and administer"?!
It has never been difficult to learn (I've been teaching basic SQL since 1988 to non-technical people):
no more than any other database. It might have been difficult to administer in the past but it is far easier nowadays. Anyway,
its instrumentation and configurability is one of the reasons it is a great and very fast database....

> SQL Server is more lightweight, but it naturally ties you into the
> Windows platform, if you want to deploy on some other operating
> system... tough. Many administrators love it, some hate it. The
> spatial support is also pretty new, which means support for it is
> still building. However, it is Microsoft, so it'll only get stronger
> over time.

A reasonable summary.

> PostGIS is easy to install and easy to use, it has a clear simple
> syntax, it's been around a long time, is stable and very fast.

Now you go and compare apples with oranges. Above you have a go at Oracle being "difficult"
(like ESRItes say Spatial is slow - but forget to tell you the slowest client against Oracle Spatial
is ArcSDE. Compare ArcSDE+ArcGIS render time against GeoServer or MapServer and you'll
see what I mean), but you don't talk about Oracle Spatial you talk about Oracle.

You reference Spatial when talking about SQL Server (a fraction of the functionality of the database) but
your criticisms are mainly about it (the host database) being on one platform etc etc.

Yes PostGIS is "easy to install" but Oracle Spatial is even easier: you don't have to as it comes with
the database! There are no issues about putting the Oracle Spatial code in another schema (cf the emails
on this forum) - it just "works". Doesn't get easier than that!

With regards spatial the functionality of the basic type in PostGIS is far superior to anything else on the market.
Critical analytical functionality like ST_Union cannot be matched and are excellent. Oracle has other SPatial
APIs other than just the basic type but the number of people who use them is low because of licensing issues.
Yes, PostGIS has related projects that compare to these but most of these projects are not yet in full production (ie verion 1.0 or above).

But if we talk about PostgreSQL the database, yes it is easy to install, but I would argue that it more difficult to
learn than Oracle because of its quirky post-Relational extensions which (for simple people like me)
is exposed in weird SQL quirks that I find frankly, crazy. Something trivial in Oracle can be bloody hard
in PostgreSQL. Anyway, Oracle has better, more mature functionality (ie existed before PostgreSQL 8.4!) in many areas
that I take for granted in crafting solutions eg hierarchical queries, materialized views, full analytic SQL etc.

I am still learning how to get the best out of PostgreSQL. I like it a lot but that learning process will last a long time.
And that learning (same with SQL Server) is not about the spatial stuff - it is trivial - it is about learning and
mastering the whole database (eg explain plan and performance analysis).  If you are not interested in doing this
then just grab any database your GIS can connect to and treat it like a bit-bucket: PostgreSQL is probably  best for this.

Just my 2c worth.

regards
Simon


> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Bruce Foster <gis.foster at gmail.com> wrote:
>> a. Read somewhere on Topology. Hope someone throw more light on this.
>
> Some basic topology support, but nothing to write home about, and more
> importantly there are no client tools that support it. Topology is a
> sexy slow dance between the underlying data model and the user-facing
> application that exposes the model, and the difficult part is on the
> user-facing side. This is why ESRI's topology stuff remains
> more-or-less the only stuff in use -- because they nailed the
> user-facing side.
>
>> b. Versioning, which is not available in Postgres
>
> You can build versioned tables easily enough with some simple rules
> and triggers. Again, the question is what user-facing application you
> are planning to use and what your use case is going to be.
>
>> On a related note, can we edit directly on PostGIS using MapInfo,
>
> Yes
>
>> ArcGIS Desktop,
>
> Yes, with zigGIS. Yes also with ArcGIS Server underneath, but ... ouch.
>
>> AutoCad Map3D etc.
>
> Yes'ish, the FDO support for PostGIS is still limited and apparently
> this is finicky at best.
>
>> uDIG, QGIS allow direct connectivity to PostGIS, hope they allow
>> direct file editing too.
>
> Yes, they do. As does gvSIG, and I think MapWindow.
>
> Also web-based tricks, like WFS editing through openlayers and
> geoserver. Or through openlayers and featureserver. Or through geoext
> and mapfish.
>
> Best,
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>>
>> --
>> Thanks
>>
>> Bruce
>> NSW Australia
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>>
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