Matt Goebel

I’ve recently been running some simple, homemade, benchmarking test to compare the performance of the Advantage Local DB engine versus that of SQL Server CE.  What I found was surprising since both of these product offerings target the same market and both have considerably large companies (budgets) behind them.  If nothing else I have to be honest and say that I was expecting SQL Server CE to edge out Advantage, if not break even with it. 

He is the basic setup of the test:

Simple application with a timer, two threads and two counters.  When clicking the start button the application starts the timer and kicks off the two threads.  One thread is for Advantage and the other SQL Server CE.  In each thread a simple insert statement is executed against the respective database.  In both cases a connection is taken full cycle, being opened, executing the insert statement and then closing the connection.  Upon closing the connection the thread updates its respective counter and starts over, repeating the process for 60 seconds.  Each database has one table with 2 columns of equivalent data types.

Here is what I found…

I ran three basic test and in each test the performance of Advantage beat CE by nearly a 2:1 margin.

Test #1: One (1) instance of the application running for 60 seconds.  Advantage wins – 2.1 : 1

Test #2: Six (6) instances of the application running simultaneously for 60 seconds.  Using averages…  Advantage wins – 2.3 : 1

Test #3: One (1) instance of the application running for 60 seconds, with the DB files located on a different machine within the LAN.  Advantage wins 2 : 1

Test #4: Two (2) instances of the application running simultaneously for 60 seconds, with the DB files located on a different machine within the LAN.  Advantage wins 2 : 1  (However, this test gave both light weight databases a hard time and even caused exceptions to be thrown due to their architecture…I’m sure to properly run this test the beefier bigger brothers (full database engines / services) should be put to the test.)

Disclosure on the hardware I ran this on:  Lenovo T500, Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.27GHz, 3GB RAM, and running a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate

Since starting AP Innovation I have been constantly meeting people.  Networking events, breakfasts, coffee, lunches, conferences, speaking engagements, you name it.  The main reason for this is the tried and true statement of “It is not WHAT you know in life, but WHO you know if life that will determine much of your success and direction”.  While there are many variations of that statement it all comes down to the simple truth that the vast majority of business is done via relationship and that no matter how skilled you are at something…no one is going to buy it if they don’t know you exist.

Well tonight while attending an event hosted by ESI Technology Advisors here in Indianapolis I heard a new twist on the old adage that got me thinking.  The twist was “that it is not about what you know or who you know, but who knows you”.  That got me thinking about a couple of things….

First, at a basic level, this is the ideal of any business owner or sales person.  If the right people know you and are passing you lead after lead and the business just naturally piles on without having to beat the pavement all the time…what a sweet set up.  Given deeper thought however there is a elegant and simple truth to the saying…

That is that it takes a relationship, a two way street, you knowing someone and them knowing you back to really thrive in business.  Just having a really impressive stack of business cards doesn’t cut.  So while you may ‘know’ a lot of people, chances are you are in the same boat as the person that really knows the ‘what’ if you aren’t building those two way street relationships that allows other people to know you.

From now on, for me at least, this is the upgraded statement to live by…  “It is not WHAT or WHO you know in life, but who knows YOU that will determine much of your success”

I know there are plenty of charts out there on mobile OS market share…and they all show Google’s Android OS dominating in recent months.  But here is a quick real-life (my story) example of why Google is killing MS in the mobile market, and not to mention the small business market.

My company, AP Innovation, used Small Business Office Live (the Windows Live business offering by Microsoft) for over a year, from the creation of the company until just recently.  In that time….

- I used Outlook Connector to get my email, calendar and contacts in Outlook…with subpar integration and performance…keep in mind that the integration is a MS product to MS product…

- My Blackberry Storm was only able to sync email…that is it, SBOL does not offer support for contacts or calendar.  A huge pain for running your own business and being on the go a lot.  Getting my calendar or contacts was nearly impossible on the go…something that is unacceptable in my mind these days.

- I got an email correspondence from MS maybe once or twice a month pushing a new product offering or updating me on changes.  Never anything personalized.

In comparison, I’ve been on Google Apps for a little over a week and in that time…

- The Google App Sync application for Outlook works better than the Outlook Connector did…a sad realization seeing as MS should be able to best integrate with its own products better than the competition.

- My new Droid X integrates seamlessly (I can’t stress that enough) with every aspect of my Google Apps for AP Innovation …it’s like a dream.

- 4 days after signing up I get a personal call from a member of the Google Apps staff asking me about my migration and how things are going…offering to help me with any issues I may have…talk about customer service!

Now to Microsoft’s defense (I am a huge MS fan still after all) I never did try their service with a Windows OS based phone like Windows 7, but sadly I believe I would have been in the same boat based on articles and post I’ve read online.

So Microsoft…please get your act together!

Quick tip I just discovered when trying to do quick and dirty existence checks on some data during a large data migration.  Instead of using the generic List<> method of Exist(), use a Dictionary<> object with its ContainsKey method.  This saves the List from performing a linear search each time and if you have large list or collections it can get very processor expensive.

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