MySQL on Windows - Good Idea? 61
mikeballer asks: "We currently run our website from a shared hosting environment, with ASP and MS SQL Server. We will be moving to a dedicated host, and to save money, we are considering transitioning to MySQL while remaining in a Windows environment. I had read the Windows-vs-Unix section of the MYSQL documentation, but what is Slashdot's perspective on the performance of MySQL in a Windows environment?"
Lame. Very, very lame. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can't resist (Score:4, Insightful)
In general, most oss stuff that makes linux popular runs on windows as well these days (quite often with very good commercial support available and user communities that dwarf their linux counterparts). Basically all of the commandline stuff is likely to already have at least an cygwin port. The more important packages generally have windows specific versions as well (e.g. apache, mysql, openoffice, firefox, python, perl, gaim, php
I'm a big OSS fan and I use windows almost exclusively. Aside from the OS and office (at work), most stuff I use is open source. I prefer linux for server environments, though, but performance or stability are not the reasons. Managability is the big reason for me.
Despite this I'm pragmatic enough to see that you don't want linux unless you have a capable sysadmin available to run it. Putting linux in an environment with a few windows wannabe sysadmins (i.e. most small companies) is just asking for trouble.
A little more info would be necessary... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are moving from a shared environment, I presume you aren't massively high volume but you should bear in mind that using ASP with MySQL you will have to go through ODBC which will have a performance penalty. With SQL Server you can use a native driver as I believe you can if you use MySQL with certain application servers other than ASP.
Also remember you can move entirely to Linux while still using ASP [sun.com] if you want.
You should also look at what you are storing in your database - is it highly transactional, updated continually with absolutely essential information (I am thinking orders/financial transactions) or is it mainly SELECTs on data that is updated infrequently. With the former, data integrity should be top of your shopping list while with the latter you just need to make sure that you back up regularly and you shouldn't lose anything important even in case of a disaster. MySQL 5 is meant to be much better on this matter and many other issues that were problematic for MySQL in the past but bear in mind that v5 is only out a few months.
Bottom line is - if you have a relatively low-traffic website with relatively simple code, moving shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you have a high-traffic website with complex SQL, moving will likely cost more than a SQL Server license. BTW, SQL Server is a decent database, I wouldn't move off it just for the heck of it.