Months into the development cycle, and with costs for the database tier of its current solution spinning out of control, the medical profiling startup Medigenesis Inc. decided it needed to find a more cost-effective solution that fit both its database needs and business model. That solution was to switch from a Solaris and Oracle combination to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 running on Intel-based servers. The company -- which quantifies human illnesses, enabling common people to compare themselves with others who "look the same" from a medical perspective -- needed a database that could scale to huge proportions and could handle up to 500,000 concurrent users, as well as store all content for its site on the database tier of the application.

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