Re: Selling MySQL to Government
Hi, I have been through a similar case. I am working for a large organization, which had the Human Resources data scattered through seven different Access databases counting about 200K records. The challange was not only to migrate them, but also to unify into one armonized structure. I made a prototype with MySQL, after a cursory data migration, with ONE MILLION records (between real and simulated ones), which showed the potential users most of the benefits in matter of reliability, speed, accessibility and security. The users were fascinated. The IT department not so much, since they had in mind a more expensive tool (which, under the most optimistic view, is not going to be deployed before 18 months) and they don't like the open source philosophy. However, since the users were so supportive, I got over the opposition and managed to finish the project. Now I have 100 days uptime in my server and of course the users love it. The key part was the business case that I proposed to the users. With a prototype, they were able to appreciate the difference and support my choice. Best of luck Giuseppe - Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
Selling MySQL to Government
Today, I started a temporary position at the US Export/Import Bank. They're a government agency that provides loans and other financing servies to small exporters and importers who can't get funds from their local banks. They put me to work cleaning up the database of their marketing division, which sends out direct mail, faxes, and e-mails, among other things. Besides being poorly organized, etc., there's a serious flaw: they're using MS Access 2000 to manage over 350K records. While speaking with my boss, she mentioned that they were looking to go away from Access, as it crashed regularly and had major trouble handling that big of a load. They were particularly concerned, since the database is projected to grow to 1 million records in the next year or two. I mentioned MySQL as a possible solution, explained the concept of open-source software, and got her intrigued. I'm very much uncertain about how to take the next step, though. I'd like to be able to present her with a good sales pitch for MySQL, but I don't really know enough about it to make one up (I'm still very much a newbie to it, though I do like it so far). Since I'm sure this sort of thing has come up before, I'm wondering if you can point me to any good resources, particularly as they might relate to the US Gov't, banks, or direct mailing agencies. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Alex Kirk - Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
Re: Selling MySQL to Government
Hi, In my real life job, I'm a web/database/whatever developer for a DoD lab. We made the jump from Access to client/server architecture quite a few years ago. We evaluated many choices and settled at the time on Sybase. Of course, MySQL did not exist then (or may have, just not in a useable form for us). We have a modest user community of about 1000 users, and host roughly 20 to 30 GB of data (tiny by many peoples standards). I can tell you that if we were moving from Access today we would not only be considering the big commercial systems (MS SQL Server, Sybase, Oracle and DB2) but also PostgreSQL and MySQL. You should objectively evaluate each of these choices. I'm a big MySQL fan (see my site below...1+ databases :)) but I wouldn't say it's the right tool for everyone. What is your driving factor? In our case it was not cost. I know $20k for a server license sounds like a lot (I believe thats roughly the cost for MS SQL server and Sybase, Oracle is $40k IIRC) , but when a man-year of labor is $150k and you have a team of programmers, the fact that mysql is free really gets lost.Maybe saving $20k is a big deal for you though. We have a lot of legacy business logic (at least 1000 stored procedures and triggers) in Sybase. If I proposed to my boss that I wanted to migrate to MySQL and recode he'd laugh in my face. How complex is your overall system? Is your development team really a couple of VBA weenies? Do you think that they can rapidly pick up other tools? Can they meet a reasonable time to market? I will bet that it is pretty easy to migrate an access database to SQL Server and port the VBA forms to ASP pages. Support? Thats usually the magic question and the reason that people go commercial. I'm sure you can get excellent support from MySQL AB, but I'm not sure you can get 1 hour response 24/365 support (Redhat now sells that for PostgreSQL for about $40k/year, which is roughly industry standard from what I've seen) Interoperability? Some agencies must adopt the software standards of the parent organization. Security? Up until very recently much of the Navy was *forbidden* to use opensource software (the rule was seldom enforced and generally ignored) These are just off the top of my head, I hope this helps! Regards, Gary SuperID Huntress === FreeSQL.org offering free database hosting to developers Visit http://www.freesql.org - Original Message - From: Alex Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 9:23 PM Subject: Selling MySQL to Government Today, I started a temporary position at the US Export/Import Bank. They're a government agency that provides loans and other financing servies to small exporters and importers who can't get funds from their local banks. They put me to work cleaning up the database of their marketing division, which sends out direct mail, faxes, and e-mails, among other things. Besides being poorly organized, etc., there's a serious flaw: they're using MS Access 2000 to manage over 350K records. While speaking with my boss, she mentioned that they were looking to go away from Access, as it crashed regularly and had major trouble handling that big of a load. They were particularly concerned, since the database is projected to grow to 1 million records in the next year or two. I mentioned MySQL as a possible solution, explained the concept of open-source software, and got her intrigued. I'm very much uncertain about how to take the next step, though. I'd like to be able to present her with a good sales pitch for MySQL, but I don't really know enough about it to make one up (I'm still very much a newbie to it, though I do like it so far). Since I'm sure this sort of thing has come up before, I'm wondering if you can point me to any good resources, particularly as they might relate to the US Gov't, banks, or direct mailing agencies. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Alex Kirk - Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php - Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
Re: Selling MySQL to Government
On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 09:33:16PM -0500, Gary Huntress wrote: I'm sure you can get excellent support from MySQL AB, but I'm not sure you can get 1 hour response 24/365 support. You should ask them. Their answer might surprise you. :-) Jeremy -- Jeremy D. Zawodny, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Yahoo - Yahoo Finance Desk: (408) 349-7878 Fax: (408) 349-5454 Cell: (408) 685-5936 MySQL 3.23.41-max: up 55 days, processed 1,244,684,489 queries (257/sec. avg) - Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
Re: Selling MySQL to Government
At 2:23 AM + 11/1/01, Alex Kirk wrote: Today, I started a temporary position at the US Export/Import Bank. They're a government agency that provides loans and other financing servies to small exporters and importers who can't get funds from their local banks. They put me to work cleaning up the database of their marketing division, which sends out direct mail, faxes, and e-mails, among other things. Besides being poorly organized, etc., there's a serious flaw: they're using MS Access 2000 to manage over 350K records. While speaking with my boss, she mentioned that they were looking to go away from Access, as it crashed regularly and had major trouble handling that big of a load. They were particularly concerned, since the database is projected to grow to 1 million records in the next year or two. I mentioned MySQL as a possible solution, explained the concept of open-source software, and got her intrigued. I'm very much uncertain about how to take the next step, though. I'd like to be able to present her with a good sales pitch for MySQL, but I don't really know enough about it to make one up (I'm still very much a newbie to it, though I do like it so far). Since I'm sure this sort of thing has come up before, I'm wondering if you can point me to any good resources, particularly as they might relate to the US Gov't, banks, or direct mailing agencies. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Alex Kirk This might help you make your case (something I wrote). Migrating from Microsoft Access to MySQL: http://www.nusphere.com/products/access2mysql.pdf - Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
