I wouldn't say that "a really big amount of data" is the only reason to use Oracle:
- Scalability/Performance - 9i can use clusters better than any of the others
- Scalability/Number of Users - every version from 7.0 up can use MTS (and more in newer versions) for servicing extreme numbers of users (10K's)
- Reliability - 9i (or even 8i) almost completely transparent (ie no need to reconnect) failover
- Hardware independence - everything from a Win95 (or if you really know what you're doing ... DOS) to Mainframes via virtaully every flavour of *nix can support an Oracle database
- Features - stored procs in PL/SQL and Java, pre-compiled SQL (aka cached queries) and PL/SQL (in 9i), Views, snapshots, full text indexing, web based administration, triggers (on startup, login and shutdown not just insert/update/delete), full audit facilities, security (built in encryption for starters)
- Metalinks/Technet - a *useful* knowledgebase
- and it ships with Perl, Apache and mod_perl :)
I don't work for Oracle, and the phone support is pretty much summed up as "upgrade!", but with everything from Personal Oracle Lite to Enterprise Edition freely available for download it's very easy to get started.
Just my 2p worth :)
rdfield
