TestProNews Q1 - 2005
Benefits of Using SQL Server for Enterprise Test Data Management
An enterprise test data management (TDM) system must run on a high-performance,
secure database. The database must deliver reliable performance to test engineers
and managers who need real-time access to test data locally and around the world.
Although many test engineers and managers are familiar with desktop products such
as Microsoft Access, these products do not qualify as a high-performance, secure,
reliable enterprise database required for TDM applications*. Of the products that
meet the requirements for enterprise TDM, the most popular according to a May 2004
study released by Gartner Inc., are Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and IBM DB2. In
this study, SQL Server showed the largest market share growth with 11.1% while IBM
DB2 showed a 5% growth and Oracle only a 2.4% growth.
VI Technology
has a decade of experience in deploying database systems in test environments using
both SQL Server and Oracle and has found that both databases deliver reliable, high-performance
solutions. In addition, Arendar, our award winning enterprise TDM software for design
and manufacturing test environments runs on both SQL Server and Oracle.
While Oracle is a reliable database option for enterprise TDM, SQL Server provides
several benefits over Oracle for engineers and managers of design and manufacturing
test departments.
Total Cost of Ownership
Total cost of ownership, (TCO), is the cost of owning a product over its lifecycle.
Factors that contribute to TCO of a database are the costs of the database's initial
purchase, number of users installation, training, future upgrades and maintenance.
Independent third-party studies have found that SQL Server offers a much lower TCO
than other enterprise
databases1.
SQL Server achieves the lowest TCO through the lowest price point, simplified administration
and self-tuning.
When considering TCO, the first thing most people consider is a product's price.
SQL Server has a lower price than any of the other leading enterprise databases.
The standard edition of SQL Server 2000 starts at approximately $5000, while the
equivalent version of Oracle 10g starts at $15,000. The savings are even much larger
when comparing other versions.
SQL Server has a well-earned reputation for its easy installation, graphical administration,
integrated tools and extensive collection of help wizards. These tools help streamline
all the maintenance and administration tasks. This results in less time required
to maintain the database and more time available to analyze test data to improve
your product quality and optimize design and manufacturing processes.
All enterprise databases must be configured properly to achieve optimal performance.
This configuration, known as "tuning" occurs during deployment and on a periodic
basis to match the usage patterns of the database. For most enterprise databases,
database administrators (DBAs) use their expertise to tune the database to the current
usage and data requirements. SQL Server, however, automatically tunes itself to
run optimally. Therefore the deployment time and ongoing maintenance time of a TDM
system with SQL Server will be lower than any other enterprise database. With the
complex requirement of tuning eliminated, test engineers are often able to maintain
TDM systems built on SQL Server themselves.
Label
Integration with External Tools
Most automated test systems are developed using popular test, measurement, and analysis
tools such as National Instruments
TestStand, LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, and DIAdem.
You may also have some test system code written
using Microsoft Visual Studio.Net. Leading enterprise TDM software, such as Arendar,
will most likely be providing the interface between these tools and the database.
By leveraging the administration tools and seamless database integration provided
with the TDM software, you benefit by getting easy-to-use graphical database configuration,
fail-safe data transfers, data buffering, security, and simplified data access capabilities
right out of the box.
On some occasions, however, you may want to access the database directly from the
test, measurement, and analysis software. For those occasions, SQL Server integrates
very well with all these environments. Test, measurement, and analysis software
products require that database communication software be installed on the test system
and the engineer's PC in order to access a database. The software that connects
SQL Server and your test system or PC is usually already installed on Windows machines.
Microsoft also provides simple and robust installation modules in the event that
the software is not pre-installed. Even if you do not foresee the need to access
the database directly, simply knowing that you have the option to use a wide range
of tools is comforting.
Performance
SQL Server's performance is at the top of the enterprise database industry. Workload
benchmarks show that SQL Server can handle the most extreme throughputs. A single
SQL Server installation supports more than 250,000 active users, processes 786,646
transactions per minute, and offers the highest Transaction Processing Council Benchmark
C(TPC-C)2.
This is more than enough performance for the demand put on TDM systems.
Single Vendor Solution
When considering your next enterprise TDM system, you should consider the benefits
of getting the entire solution from a single vendor that can provide the TDM software,
database, operating system and server platform. If purchased separately, problems
can arise when the database vendor starts to blame the OS vendor, and vice versa.
With a one-vendor solution, you can rely on one company to resolve the issue and
expect the one vendor to be more familiar with any issues related to the interaction
of the OS and the database.
Figure 1: SQL Server offers the lowest price/performance ratio of all the leading enterprise databases.
|
Conclusion
The combination of SQL Server's performance with its price yields the lowest price
to performance ratio of any enterprise database (Figure 1). Therefore, SQL Server
is ideally suited to design and manufacturing test groups who are usually very sensitive
to both price and performance. Furthermore, the simplified administration, auto-tuning,
single vendor solution and integration with test, measurement, and analysis tools
usually make SQL Server the database of choice for test managers when choosing their
company's enterprise TDM system.
References
(1) Understanding Database Pricing: Comparing Database and Business Intelligence
Pricing and Licensing
Published: January 2005
Downloaded on 01/20/05 from: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/understdbpricing.asp
(2) Transaction Processing Performance Council
TPC-C Version 5 Results as of February 1st 2005
Downloaded 0n 02/01/05 from: http://www.tpc.org/
Related Articles
*Managing Test Data - A whitepaper detailing the advantages of using databases in
a test system.
Click here
to
login and download.
Ask the Expert
Email questions concerning this article to:
expert.testpronews@vi-tech.com
|
|
|
|
Read about the latest information for integrating automated test systems throughout the enterprise. |
|
|
|
 |
Download PDF |
|
|
