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

[Simon Greener]

Nathan,

> I was involved in the same sort of decision about 9 months ago.

Often these decisions are made by one's IT department as spatial data mangement
is about fundamental integration with the business's enterprise data management.

So, if you business's data management is SQL Server on Wintel then that is what you end up with
to do spatial data management. Putting a PostGIS/Oracle database into this environment such that
"your" (what is "your" in a business?) database is a point solution in a sea of SQL Server? You will
miss out on taking advantage of IT Services that they do automatically for those things they control:
backup, common login, virtualisation, license cost negotiation...

> Generally what we found was that Oracle Spatial supported a basic set
> of functions so they can check that features box in sales brochures
> saying "yes, we do geospatial stuff", but you have to do it Oracle's
> way.

Well, having used Oracle since around 1986 I find such a cynical view rather disconcerting.
Where did you learn to be so cynical? How much real Oracle experience (both ordinary and spatial)
do you have? What empirical data do you have to support and prove such a hypothesis? I have been
using Spatial since 8.1.6 (production quality) and that is a long long time ago....
before PostGIS really got going.... and really before the OGC standards got going...

> OTOH, PostGIS was much more feature-filled and adheres to standards,
> plus has all of the benefits of PostgreSQL, which was a plus for us
> for other reasons.  Having PostGIS has opened doors to WMS, WFS and
> other OGC services so we can use other services without being locked
> into Oracle.

SQL Server adheres to standards (OGC SFS 1.1) as well you know! In case you didn't know,
the large majority of the PostGIS functionality is extra to the basic functions that are part of
the OGC/SQLMM standards: so, ST_SetPoint/ST_AddPoint/ST_RemovePoint are not a part
of any standard (the standards SHOULD include such things but they simply don't).....

Oracle (that also is compliant with OGC 1.1 SFS) from 10gR2 includes a SQL/MM compliant ST_* API that
is fully inherited: BTW PostGIS's ST_* implementation is not fully inherited!  Does it matter that it isn't? Well,
for me, no, but for you, given you believe PostGIS is a better standards adherer than Oracle etc, maybe you should
have a second look.

The OGC services you mention are not services that PostGIS or any database directly provides. These are normally provided
by the middletier. Oracle's MapViewer is fully Java middletier compliant. It provides WMS/WFS/WFS-T/CSW interfaces.
Oracle's latest OGC OpenLS services supports:

     * Location Utility Service (geocoding)
     * Presentation Service (mapping)
     * Route Service (driving directions)
     * Directory Service (YP, or "Yellow Pages")

Other, non Oracle software such as GeoServer, MapServer, MapGuide OS etc (including commercial software like ArcGIS Server etc)
all support Oracle Locator/Spatial and I have seen GeoServer running against Oracle Locator successfully in many sites in Australia.

> I have used and administered Oracle (I'm not a certified DBA) and it
> was quite a handful.  Note I did not use Oracle Spatial at the time,
> but I'm speaking in general terms.  Spending about the same time with
> PostgreSQL/PostGIS, it's much easier to work with, smaller, and more
> agile.

I have a Associate DBA qualification for Oracle but because I don't practice as one I don't have the day-to-day skills needed to
manage an Oracle database in a production environment. I am a geospatial database specialist and architect NOT a DBA. For some
DBAs what spatial and application people do inside the databases they manage is specialist and they don't want to know about something they
don't need to know about. Others feel they do need to know something about what goes on to make sure the database is running the best it can. In
the end they specialise in ONE product whereas we spatial people tend to work with multiple - and you can't know everything about everything!

But I do have Oracle 10gR2 and 11gR1 up and running on my consulting machines as well as SQL Server 2008 and PostgreSQL 8.4. How much
administration have I done with my Oracle database? About as much as I have done with the other two: nothing.

regards
Simon
-- 
SpatialDB Advice and Design, Solutions Architecture and Programming,
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