"DA Morgan" <damorgan@x.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:41d44135$1_3@127.0.0.1...
> Kalle wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I wonder is there a list of topics/excel sheet/questions to be answered
> > or asked from vendor when you are choosing the correction database
> > software among like oracle/teradata/db2 etc... And now we are talking
> > about terabyte amount of data...
> >
> > All points to links would be nice and all other comments as well...
> >
> > Thank you in advance...
> >
> > Kalle
>
> There are lists created by vendors but, no surprise, all are
> self-serving: As well they should be.
>
> Here's my list:
> 1. What skills exist inside the organization?
> 2. What skills exist in the local/regional marketplace?
> 3. What will support third-party applications and tools we want to use?
> 4. What books are available to support us?
> 5. What on-line resources are available to support us?
> 6. What are the chances the company/product will not exist in 10 years?
> 7. What programming languages does the product support?
> 8. What is required to secure the data?
> 9. What is required to recover from hardware failure?
>
> Generically you will find all three products you mention can easily
> handle terabytes of data. But I challenge you to find a book on
> Amazon.com about teradata or to find a pool of potential employee
> candidates.
> --
> Daniel A. Morgan
> University of Washington
> damorgan@x.washington.edu
> (replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)

Your list is good from a general point of view, but, for example, #6- the
question first needs to be asked- How far out to we require technical
support?" For one project I am working on, we only care about the next 5
years. #7 could be restated- "Does it support programming languages we now
use or are willing to use?" Basically, you have put together a list of
technical questions, but this needs to be preceeded by a list of business
questions and requirements. The answers to those help determine how much
weight each technical question gets, and and what the specific parameters of
these questions need to be.