Comment Re:If you have to ask, you can't afford it (Score 1) 147
Developers can and do build full turnkey solutions at zero speculation cost. Try that with DB2 or MS Foxbase Pro.
DB2 Express is free, to allow developers to experiment and build up solutions with zero cost. Last time I looked, it was also the most deployed commercial database solution in the Amazon EC2 cloud. From there, it's up to you whether you want to head down the High Availability routes via HADR or pureScale, or the shared-nothing infrastructure of DPF. Or stay with Express if it meets your needs.
P.S. Standard disclaimer: I work for IBM