Microsoft is little shy of going against competitors by taking a shot at their products, and Oracle is just the latest firm to come into its focus. The Redmond-based company has put together and published a comparison involving SQL Server and Oracle Real Application Clusters. The whitepaper, which is set up to be a competitive review from Microsoft, is available for download here. The software giant is attempting to convince database customers that SQL Server 2008 is more suitable for them when compared to Oracle RAC. Of course that just like virtualization solutions and Windows PCs, Microsoft is touting the price advantage associated with its data platform.

“In the current economic climate, where value for money is paramount and IT budgets are being cut, the Microsoft SQL Server database program represents a wiser investment because it can meet the same requirements as an equivalent Oracle RAC installation at a much lower cost. The lower cost is achievable due to advances in hardware technology that make it possible to meet the resource requirements of most applications by using commodity hardware, such as multi-core CPUs,” reads an excerpt from the whitepaper.

According to Microsoft, customers that adopt and implement Oracle RAC following guidance provided by Oracle via the Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) need to also pay for Active Data Guard, which adds $5,800 per processor. “An Oracle RAC solution can cost five times more than an equivalent SQL Server solution that satisfies the same requirements, but does the Oracle RAC solution provide five times better performance, scalability, and high availability than SQL Server?” the software giant asks.

Microsoft recommends that customers themselves deploy and test both Oracle RAC and SQL Server 2008 and draw their own conclusions. However, this does not stop the Redmond-based company from emphasizing the limitations of Oracle RAC in specific scenarios, or to debunk what it refers to as myths and misunderstandings related to the rival offering.