Not sure where he dug up that price chart. We run Small Business Server and it gets us the whole OS, along with Enterprise Edition on 4 processors for like $2,000 all in. That's what, 10 billable hours to pay for it? Cheaper than the box it's running on.
SQL Server is cheap, and like he said, it's miles better than the free options.
That price chart is consistent with what I've seen in projects at big companies I've worked with. SQL Server costs of over $20k/box are normal - and that applies to UAT and test boxes also.
The real danger of using expensive proprietary databases is that because of the cost per box you tend to design your projects to use one big expensive server instead of multiple small, cheap servers. The big server approach eventually hits a scalability ceiling and then you have to pay for X more big expensive servers and re-architect a bit. This may sound absurd but I've seen it happen more than once. The killer feature of the free, open-source databases is as much the "free" part as it is the "open source" part.
Are you honestly arguing that $2,000 in software costs is a big enough price tag to sway your technology decision?
We run a box that cost ~$4k all in ($2k hardware + the aforementioned software costs), and stash it in a cage that costs $400/month to keep it connected power and a fat pipe. Assuming it lasts us 4 years, that's $23,200 in server costs over the life of the box.
Now assume we'd skimped on a LAMP stack and pocked ourself a cool two grand in software costs. At the end of that 4 years, we'd still have spent $21,200 keeping our servers alive.
And it scales out exactly the same way. We can throw hardware at the problem every bit as easily as you. It's just, what? 9% more expensive over time, depending on your math. And that's on top of a ridiculously low price tag anyway.
Web servers are dirt cheap, regardless of which stack you go with. The price difference between commercial and free databases are just noise. In the end, it's certainly not something you should consider when choosing a technology.
No, you miss my point in two distinct ways. $20k per server is middle of the road for a MS SQL in a big enterprise. It's on the low side for Oracle. It happens all the time; I've seen it (and argued against it.)
The other point, though, is that it's not the $2k or $20k in software costs. Really, to a big enterprise, $20k is nothing. The real problem is that it ties you down to making architectural decisions because of the cost of the software. Say you're right and you can license MS SQL for only $2k. What happens when you start partitioning your data and end up with 50 servers? Suddenly that $2k is $100k... or if you're on the enterprise plan it's $20k * 50 = $1,000,000. And I'm not speculating. I've lived thorough this scenario more than once.
Also, I object to the phrase "skimped on a LAMP stack." It's not skimping. Cost factors aside, the LAMP stack is better.
I actually do get your point. Let me paraphrase it to ensure we're on the same page:
- you have seen organizations pay $20k for SQL Server
- 50 boxes like that will cost a lot of money.
- SQL Server is actually worse than (at least one of) the free options
Here's my experience:
- I've actually purchased SQL server, bundled with the OS and all other necessary software for $2k.
- 50 boxes like that won't cost significantly more than they would with free software, if you consider the dominant cost of operating it, which is hosting fees.
- SQL Server is actually really good.
So yeah, I imagine that people overpay for SQL Server all the time, and they certainly pay a ton for Oracle. They don't need to though. Microsoft is really good at making sure that businesses use their software, and they'll find a way to price it in a way you can afford.
SQL Server is cheap, and like he said, it's miles better than the free options.