kamauallan@gmail.com (Allan Kamau) writes:
> I agree with Merlin, There is a surprising big number of "good"
> technology companies (including Google) out there using MySQL. For
> sometime I have been wondering why and have come up with a few
> (possibly wrong) theories. Such as: these companies are started by
> application developers not database experts, the cost (effort) of
> changing to other database engine is substantial given that that
> probably there is already so much inconsistencies in their current
> data setup coupled with considerable amount of inconsistency cover-up
> code at the application programs, and maybe the IT team is doubling up
> as a fire fighting department constantly putting out the data driven
> fires. This is then compounded by the rapid increase in data.
This wasn't a good explanation for what happened when Sabre announced
they were using MySQL:
http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/generate-article.php?id=2003_33
I used to work at Sabre, and what I saw was *mostly* an Oracle shop, but
with significant bastions of IMS, DB2, Teradata, and Informix. Your
theory might fit with "dumb startups," but certainly not with Sabre,
which still has significant deployments of IMS! :-)
I actually am inclined to go with "less rational" explanations; a lot of
decisions get made for reasons that do not connect materially (if at
all) with the technical issues.
One such would be that the lawyers and marketing folk that tend to be at
the executive layer do *their* thing of making deals, and when they're
busy "making deals," the only people interfacing with them are:
- Salescritters from the Big O buying them lunch
- Other Political Animals that Made The Decision to go with MySQL (or
such) and are happy to explain, over golf, that "it went fine for us"
(even if it didn't go entirely so fine; they didn't hear about it)
Lunch and golf can have material effects.
--
"cbbrowne","@","acm.org"
Rules of the Evil Overlord #67. "No matter how many shorts we have in
the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance
camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency."
