CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
DBMS short for database management system plays a major role in most
real-world projects that require storing, retrieving, and querying
digital data. For instance, dynamic websites, accounting information
systems, payroll systems, stock management systems all rely on internal
databases as a container to store and manage their data (Jeffrey et al,
2008). Many software development firms are today developing and
producing DBMS systems that cost between zero dollars in case of free
and open-source DBMSs, and thousands of dollars in case of proprietary
DBMSs. In particular, each DBMS is characterized by a set of diverse
functional and non-functional features and specs each having their
advantages and disadvantages. One of which is performance which
determines how fast a DBMS can process and execute queries. This study
presents the comparative analysis of MYSQL and Oracle 11G.
There are five different DBMSs available today on the market. They
are namely MS SQL Server 2008, Oracle 11g, IBM DB2, MySQL5.5, and MS
Access 2010. For this reason, several SQL queries with different level
of complexities were crafted and tested against all these well-known
DBMSs.
Additionally, a performance benchmark was used to measure the
execution time of every executed SQL query, in addition to CPU
utilization, memory usage, virtual memory usage, and threads count
(MySQL, 2008).
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system
(RDBMS) produced by Microsoft. Its primary query language is
Transact-SQL, an implementation of the ANSI/ISO standard Structured
Query Language (SQL) used by both Microsoft and Sybase. Microsoft SQL
Server supports atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable transactions.
It includes support for database mirroring and clustering. An SQL server
cluster is a collection of identically configured servers, which help
distribute the workload among multiple servers. SQL server also supports
data partitioning for distributed databases, in addition to database
mirroring which allows the creation of mirrors of database contents,
along with transaction logs, on another instance of SQL Server, based on
certain predefined triggers.
MySQL 5.5 is a free, open-source, multithreaded, and multi-user SQL
database management system which has more than 10 million installations.
The basic program runs as a server providing multi-user access to a
number of databases. MySQL includes a broad subset of ANSI SQL 99, as
well as extensions, cross-platform support, stored procedures, triggers,
cursors, updatable views, and X/Open XA distributed transaction
processing support. Moreover, it supports two phase commit engine,
independent storage engines, SSL support, query caching, replication
with one master per slave, many slaves per master, embedded database
library, and ACID compliance using the InnoDB cluster engines
Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle RDBMS or simply as
Oracle), is a relational database management system (RDBMS) released by
Oracle Corporation, and it comprises at least one instance of the
application, along with data storage. An instance comprises a set of
operating system processes and memory structures that interact with the
storage. In addition to storage, the database consists of online redo
logs which hold the transactional history. Processes can in turn archive
the online redo logs into archive logs, which provide the basis for
data recovery and for some forms of data replication.
The Oracle RDBMS stores data logically in the form of table-spaces
and physically in the form of data files. At the physical level, data
files comprise one or more data blocks, where the block size can vary
between data files. Oracle features data dictionary, indexes, and
clusters. Versions Subsequent to 10g, introduced grid computing
capabilities in which an instance application can use CPU resources from
another node in the grid.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
MySQL is the world’s second most used Database management system, and
the most popular of all open-source RDBMS systems. It provides many
features, the most valuable of which is its platform independence. The
various features of MySQL includes the fact that it can work on multiple
platforms, uses Multi-layered server design with independent modules,
executes very fast, supports many data types, uses a very fast
thread-based memory allocation system, supports fixed-length and
variable-length records. However Oracle Databases power a vast majority
of the world's most demanding environments and continue to build an
all-around lead across various industry benchmarks. Oracle currently
owns most of the world records for TPC, SAP and other such benchmarks.
Hence, this study is comparing the performance of MYSQL with Oracle 11g.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The following are the objectives of this study:
- To analyze the performance of MySQL using student records.
- To analyze the performance of Oracle 11g using student records
- To examine the differences in performance of MySQL and Oracle 11g using students record.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
- What is the performance of MySQL using student records?
- What is the performance of Oracle 11g using student records?
- What are the differences in performance of MySQL and Oracle 11g using students record?
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The following are the significance of this study:
- This study will sensitize the database managers and the general
public on the qualities of MySQL and Oracle 11g. This study will also
reveal the better option out of the two by comparing their performance
using students records.
- This research will be a contribution to the body of literature in
the area of the effect of personality trait on student’s academic
performance, thereby constituting the empirical literature for future
research in the subject area
1.6 SCOPE/LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
This study is limited to MySQL and Oracle 11g.
LIMITATION OF STUDY
Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to
impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant
materials, literature or information and in the process of data
collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously
engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will
cut down on the time devoted for the research work