Data and Database Management System (DBMS) ComparisonsWiki

Guidelines

Wikis provide students with an effective collaboration tool. This easy-to-use tool facilitates collaboration, information dissemination, and application of learning, providing meaningful connections with the content and relating new knowledge with personal experience.

For an excellent illustration of the utility and function of wikis, view Wikis in Plain English by Common Craft. For more information about Blackboard wikis, review these tutorials.

Prompt:

Discuss each question below for the DBMS assigned to your group. Then summarize the discussion in the wiki. Use bullets for each entry.

1. Size Limits: Does the DBMS enforce table, data type, or column length level? If tables with lots of fields are needed for the client, this could be an issue.

2. Purchase Cost: How much does the system cost? Is there a base price for the server and then additional costs for clients? Consider the pricing model for the school district listed in the Final Project Document.

3. Administration: Installation and Operational Costs and Considerations: How difficult is it to install, use, and maintain? Is special expertise or an ongoing contract with the provider required?

4. Operating System/Hardware Requirements: What operating systems will the DBMS work with? What are the hardware requirements to host it?

5. Features: List key features of the DBMS. Include ACID (atomicity,consistency, isolation,durability), referential integrity, transactions, Unicode, and interface.

6. Performance and Scalability:What is the speed of execution (i.e., how fast will it do what you need it to do)? What is the increase in performance when additional resources are added? For example, does it support clustering?

DBMS Comparison Table