As any IT leaders knows, it’s not what a vendor talks about when pitching a product, it’s what they don’t say, and most of all, how they answer the all-important questions IT leaders bring to the discussion table.

And that's no truer then when it's time to review, revamp and retune the database environment.

In an effort to help IT get all the information, the right information and specific answers around speed, ease of use, management issues, and most of all cost, we'll be highlighting top questions that need to be answered completely before any database decision gets made.

Question #1: In the situation where you may be considering switching out one system for a entirely new vendor solution, one of the biggest questions is how much software will be needed to keep the new system up and running? Then you need to know how much management and administration time will be when it comes to administration.

For example, the Oracle Exadata v2 is pretty complex software environment in that it requires 22 different copies of Oracle Enterprise Linux, 24 copies of Oracle database software, and 14 copies of a component called Exadata storage software.

Then IT has to install Oracle Enterprise Manager software, a diagnostic pack, a change management pack and a tuning pack.

And don’t forget the software and management that comes with the RAC scale-out architecture.

IBM’s system, in stark comparison, does not require so many software versions.

That means less work from deployment to continuing management. Less complexity means less can go wrong. And as everyone in IT know, less means more, when it comes to saving money.