MariaDB is an open-source relational database made by the original developers of MySQL, supported by the MariaDB Foundation and a community of developers. The community states recent additional capabilities as including clustering with Galera Cluster 4, compatibility with Oracle Database, and Temporal Data Tables, allowing one to query the data as it stood at any point in the past.
Our installation scenario is a MariaDB cluster composed of 3 nodes to achieve high availability in the service and in this way the application that accesses the backend (MariaDB) is always working and is not down at any time.
To achieve high performance of the application when accessing the database, a MariaDB MaxScale has been mounted that acts as a proxy for queries to the database.
Microsoft SQL Server is ideal for highly available SQL workloads by using SQL Server Always On availability groups. Microsoft SQL Server might not be appropriate for solutions which require a very low resource footprint, since it requires significant CPU cores and RAM memory as well as high IOPS, always depending on the usage scenario.
MariaDB does well with PHP or Python (django) in a web environment. Developers are able to work quickly.
MariaDB is extremely well documented and has a gigantic support community. If you need ask a question on how to do things you can go to many placces online and find answers quickly.
MariaDB is fast! Queries with tens of thousands of rows are quick.
MariaDB is highly compatible with Oracle's MySQL. Basically the same thing but more open and with a brighter future.
With MariaDB it is so easy to import and export data, and backups are a cinch. This saves me so much time as compared to other RDBMS.
Driver Support - Some third party applications use database drivers that cause unexplained slowness with MariaDB. This can be worked around by using the MySQL drivers, but it's not clear what causes the problem in the first place.
Support - While online communities are helpful in diagnosing problems, there isn't as much professional documentation/support available for MariaDB as some of the other major database options.
Data Visualization - It would be helpful if there were more built in options for analyzing statistics and generating reports.
I think it is unlikely that sql server has disappointed someone, it is likely that someone will come initially discouraged if the needs and problems that occur are very challenging, but definitely have a SQL oriented system means having a solid base to work and on which maintain the their data securely
MariaDB is very usable and stable to be used in production settings as an alternative to MySQL. The shortcomings of SQL are present but well understood in the community, and if the decision were to be made again, I would choose MariaDB over MySQL on future projects.
SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.
Yes, I would recommend MariaDB Platform support because they answer very fast and with detailed information. They also help you with the design of the storage infrastructure, not only with the maintenance problems. On the other hand, this service is a bit expensive.
We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.
Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.
It did not always compete against these technologies. Most of the time, it was complementing these databases for certain use cases to help provide a much more complete database. This makes more users want to use it to explore new solutions that help users. This is our target and how [we] work with MariaDb.
Microsoft SQL is slower than MySQL and Access but far more feature-rich and reliable. Access is almost obsolete nowadays, so not too many people are considering it, but unless budget or an open-source ethos is a factor, Microsoft SQL is superior in every way. Many commonly used tools, like Crystal Reports, support it.
MariaDB has saved us enormously on licensing compared to our previous DB software vendor.
In service, it has enabled us (speaking as the internal DB team here) to provide better service to the other teams in the company as well as our customers, with less staff.
The level of hardware required for adequate performance, in our environment, has been much lower. Those savings have been substantial, above and beyond savings on licensing and DBA staffing levels.
Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.
