In the last 9 months, every time I visited a customer, or I participated to a meetup group or I simply had a chat with a non-MySQL colleague, I heard the very same question: “when should I use MySQL and when should I use Oracle?”. The most audacious dared to ask how difficult it is to migrate from one database to another. Some more conservative DBAs and developers asked me if and how it is possible to integrate both database servers in the same environment or solution.

As you can imagine, there are not simple answers to these questions. There are certainly some guidelines that may help in making a decision around the use of MySQL, Oracle, or any other RDBMS.

When should I use Oracle 11g and when should I use MySQL Enterprise?

The ultra-simplistic answer can be summarised in:

• Go for Oracle 11g with ERP and CRM systems, Data Warehouses and sophisticated applications that require lots of …