NRA spent £18,000 on armoury software after theft

[sysreq]

Stick 20 IT engineers in a room and you will get 20 solutions, they will all work, some better that others.
But, while £18k is cheap for commercial software, if all they have got out of it is some asset tracking software, then £18K is damn expensive.

On top of that, as Ovenpaa said, buying an asset tracking database isn't going to stop any losses, you are reliant on humans doing manual processes.

Now if you want to take the humans away, RFID tag every item in the armoury and roll out location tracking wireless across the whole of Bisley, now that would be a lot more that £18k and comes with its own issues.

[HALODIN]

You're wrong, but yes we can leave it there.

Halodin, you and I will have to agree to differ on this, because I've seen the pitfalls of MySQL first hand if it is not maintained and it is far more painful than MS SQL. Yes, it's free to install, yay! But that doesn't make it free. And free asset software? Great! that's definitely the right solution for a commercial environment !

Let's leave it there, we won't agree.

[Mr_Logic]

No, you are so wrong it's not even funny. But yea, let's stop ;-)

[HALODIN]

Perhaps it's just a case of you don't know what you're doing with it. A poor workman blames his tools... etc...

[Mr_Logic]

Don't stoop to that level. I work with this stuff day in, day out. A MySQL DB isn't my primary skill set, but I've spent enough time with it to know enough.

The difference here is empathy. Look at your customer's situation. Look at how you install and use MS SQL vs MySQL. You look at it with your skill set, I am looking at it with neither. Which is easier? Most people come from a Windows background. Sure you can run MySQL on Windows, and we do because of Hyper-V. But it's best on Unix. NRA with Linux skills? Not likely.

If they have bought a managed service with a MySQL back end, great, it's a good DB in the right hands and it works well.

If they are reliant on a 20K junior IT guy with a Windows background, then the choice looks rather different.

[techguy]

Bloody systems engineers/dba's/developers always think they're right. I should know as I am one too!

The thing is chaps, we don't know the architecture of the system, what the back end is, if it's hosted and managed or on-site system. Or even what the requirements were. So while *either* SQL back end would work fine, it's just a circular argument.

For transparency, I was a MS SQL DBA for a while, and currently look after a MySQL backend for my company.

No love on this thread for Postgres?!?

[Gaz]

*ponders interviewing the NRA about the new system as a feature for work because clearly there's enough folk out there interested in it*

[Demonic69]

Face it guys, it's on Access 97.

[HALODIN]

No you haven't spent enough time with it, I'm a DBA and I've spent the last 18+ years managing RDBMS. MySQL is the second most popular database in the world, second only to Oracle, SQL Server places 3rd. In addition to the companies I've already mentioned, Flikr, YouTube, Twitter and even Google all use MySQL. Virtually every internet forum and certainly every WordPress/Joomla/Drupal site runs on MySQL and not one of those systems requires a DBA. There are millions of autonomous MySQL systems out there, all working perfectly well on Linux and the owners don't need to be Linux sysadmin or MySQL DBA, that's the beauty of the system. Ipso facto.

Don't stoop to that level. I work with this stuff day in, day out. A MySQL DB isn't my primary skill set, but I've spent enough time with it to know enough.

The difference here is empathy. Look at your customer's situation. Look at how you install and use MS SQL vs MySQL. You look at it with your skill set, I am looking at it with neither. Which is easier? Most people come from a Windows background. Sure you can run MySQL on Windows, and we do because of Hyper-V. But it's best on Unix. NRA with Linux skills? Not likely.

If they have bought a managed service with a MySQL back end, great, it's a good DB in the right hands and it works well.

If they are reliant on a 20K junior IT guy with a Windows background, then the choice looks rather different.

[HALODIN]

I still have a copy of it somewhere, but no... no thanks!

No love on this thread for Postgres?!?