Hello Thomas,

Thanks for comments!

> If IT managers have been money, they will spend it, usually to bring
> them out in respect to liability. They simply want to call Microsoft,
> Oracle if something bad happens with their DBMS. ;-)

I used to sit near technical support team in Microsoft, including MSSQL,
Exchange, etc.
Without support contract they will do nothing (except point you to MSDN
search).
With support contract they can give you advice and answer some
questions, but nobody will repair database or deep dive into issues,
like connecting to your server by remote desktop, reviewing
configuration and environment. There are few exceptions for Gold
(Advanced) level partners, but "normal" customers are not treated like
kings.
Approach for disaster recovery, as an example - make backups (if you
don't, you are not serious enterprise, and we don't work with not
serious companies - 100% true!).
Approach for high performance - suggest to hire/train stuff with MS
certificates.

>
> > In fact, migration to MSSQL (or Oracle, etc) is 100%
> > mandatory/recommended only if database size is bigger than 1Tb or number
> > users are more than 500. This situation can be changed with continued
> > price decreasing for RAM, SSDs and other hardware.
> > Right now I have draft case study from Australian company with 700Gb
> > database (which is growing by 5-6 Gb per month) with hundred of users.
> > Hopefully it will help (with others case studies
> > http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/case-studies/) IT managers and developers
> > to make right decisions.
>
> Is the case study of the Australian company already available?

No published yet. I'm waiting for approval of almost final version.

Regards,
Alexey Kovyazin