
Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition Is Now Free - ximeng
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free/
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kchoudhu
What's the point of this? I'm still going to need to shell out thousands to
deploy to production, no?

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Sanddancer
To see if it's the right tool for the task at hand. Sometimes the best
solution is Postgres on a *nix box, sometimes it's SQL Server on a Windows
box. If it saves more time/money than a solution on another platform, why
wouldn't you?

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kchoudhu
Serious question: is there really any difference between the major RDBMS at
this point?

At what workload levels does engine quality come into play? So far I've thrown
multi-terabyte/high TP workloads at Oracle, Sybase and DB2, and they've all
gotten the job done with a minimum of fuss. This leads me to think that
there's really no reason to look at databases as anything other than a
commodity service which should be chosen on the basis of cost.

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ximeng
There are certainly differences between the pricing models for these
enterprise databases. They are actively developed and have different feature
sets, although you might need to look carefully to distinguish between them.
There is active competition here
([https://redmondmag.com/articles/2016/03/10/sql-
server-2016-o...](https://redmondmag.com/articles/2016/03/10/sql-
server-2016-oracle.aspx)).

Postgresql is good but lacks some of the polish and features of the paid for
databases.

Availability and cost of skilled staff and compatibility with existing
deployments might also be important. So not critical differences perhaps but
squint hard enough and you'll see there are differences nonetheless.

