[ale] SQL server recomendations

[Gary MacKay]

There are several apps I've written in Visual Foxpro using standard .dbf
tables. These all run on windows workstations. The client likes them,
and has now authorized me to combine them and move them to a SQL
backend. What are your recommendations, hopefully without starting a
religeous war, for the server? Obviously I would like to stick with the
linux/BSD platform, but am not familiar with the commercial SQL engines
and their pro's/con's. I have used the Sybase engine on my in-house
linux server and it seems fine. Maybe a bit slow, but that may be my
fault since I don't know how to tweek it. I just did a stock install and
left it. Oracle, from what I've read, seems fine, but why should I pay
such a high price if something else will work. 

In summary, my main concern is being able to manage the engine on a
daily/yearly basis. Things like daily backups, speed tweeks, etc., etc..
I don't want to get this thing all installed and find out that once the
data is loaded, it's too slow. There will be a weekly increase of
several hundred thousand records throughout the summer, with a dramatic
slowdown on the input volume during the winter months. I realize I could
use MySQL or PostGreSQL which are free, but due to the size of this
thing, and the possibility of remote sync'ing, I'm guessing I should
stick with one of the "big guys". The next phase is to nightly send a
subset of the data to a web server, which I think is running M$ SQL, and
handled by someone else. Out of my control. To be totally compatable, I
guess I could stick with M$, but I sure hate to give Bill any more money
if I can find a better solution.

As mentioned, the workstations will all be windows of some flavor, not
my choice, but I have to work with it. The apps will be written in
Delphi, tho there is a chance I might stick with Visual Foxpro. They are
already written using only sql syntax in case this day came.


Thanks for taking the time to read this long-winded request,
- Gary
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