What benefits (if any) to the company (not only to developers) I could gain by switching from SQL Server 2008 to Versant OODB?
More info about the project and facts to help with an answer (let me know if you need more):
- Very small team, almost never used OODB.
- Project uses NHibernate 2.
- About 75% test coverage.
- ASP.NET MVC app.
At this stage I could not justify the switch due to following points (most related to db4o, not Versant mainstream OODB):
- tooling is pretty bad comparing to RDBMSs world where there are bunch of "Managers", profilers, integration/migration tools and others;
- documentation is pretty basic from what I can observe and heavily mixed with Java;
- not so many resources on the net comparing to RDBMS;
- switching to other databases may be problematic (as opposed to RDBMS);
- learning curve for the developers and IT team;
- additional licensing cost;
- additional maintenance cost;
- no integration with MSDeployment (including automatic backups, MSBuild, Packaging etc);
Here is a comments by a real user who switched from SQL Server 2005 to Versant:
Here’s feedback from me and my colleagues about VOD.Net.
I grouped my ideas in pros and cons
PROS: (In one word : Speed)
CONS: (In one word : Need Troubleshooting skills)
In résumé, I would recommend using VOD.Net for enterprise having senior developers skills and complex/big data structure. It is definitely faster creating brand new application than migrating existing application. The Object inspector need a redesign to be more user friendly.
We have addressed some of the Object Inspector concerns by providing LINQpad support. I think you should make the decision to switch based on technical benefits and not on any emotional discussion. Also, Versant is a Microsoft partner, and there are plenty of opportunities for people with good OO Skills Versant or not.