>>>I will try to get some more info for you to explain why Oracle would be the choice.
>>
>>Thanks
>
>Answers I received so far:
>
>- Oracle has been around much longer than SQL,

That's true.

>so they have the experience to handle hugh amounts of data, in the order of trillions of rows, that SQL probably won't handle as well

How does having been around longer have an impact on how many rows a database can handle? As far as ability to handle VLDB, I would love to see references to the largest databases built with each system.

>- One of the ways Oracle scales better is that it can make use of more CPUs, up to 24 I believe. I think the limit on SQL is 2-3

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/productinfo/scalable.htm

SQL 2000 Enterprise can use 32 CPUs and 64 GB of RAM on a single machine. It can also utilize Load Balancing to share workload among n-machines.

>- Oracle also scales thru the platform choice. Heavy use Oracle systems will typically use UNIX on the Oracle box. HPs UNIX or Sun Solaris for example.

True, but that's only an issue if you care. When choosing an enterprise database, you choose the database and OS as a team. I thought we were comparing SQL/Win2K to Oracle/Whatever.

Interesting topic. I would love to hear more.