RE: SPARC-III v Alpha

As a Consultant in a previous life I had done installations and upgrades on various *nixs. I did think that Alpha and HP PA-RISC were better than SPARC.

In this current organisation [as an internal DBA], about 66% of the larger databases are on Alpha and the rest on SPARC. Again, I get the gut-feeling that Alpha is better.

Next week we'll be benchmarking a database that is going from Wintel to either Alpha or SPARC. As an organisation, I think we are looking at balancing between SPARC and Alpha so I will be seeing more Sun servers running Oracle here. But there's no talk of HP PA-RISC or Itanium yet !!

Regards
Hemant

At 07:28 AM 28-10-02 -0800, you wrote:

>The whole point is a bit moot now that Alpha is a dead platform.
>
>Compaq sold the Alpha technology to Intel. As far as HP's continued support
>for Alpha, consider that HP is in a VERY competitive business; Unix makes up
>only a small part of its bottom line; and it is currently sitting on three
>Unix platforms: The old HP/UX boxes; the (supposed) new Itanium platform (so
>they say, but I remain skeptical); and the Alpha platform that it inherited.
>Even if Carly herself walked in and swore up and down that HP will continue
>to support the Alpha, I would insist that there is no way HP is going to
>commit resources to supporting three Unix platforms. Right now, I think HP
>is busy holding its finger to the wind and actively consulting The Magic 8
>Ball and a Ouija board to determine its future Unix direction.
>
>We use Alpha here. I came to this shop from a predominantly Sun/Aix
>environment. I can say that Compaq's handling of the Alpha/Tru64 platform
>make it the only version of Unix that makes NT look good. My opinion is --
>and this is just an opinion -- that any performance "enhancements" that were
>achieved by the Compaq bunch were done so in the same way you would do it
>with your PC: Overclock the bejeezus out of everything with the
>accompanying reduction of stability and component life. I am convinced that
>the latest Alpha technology is three year old tweaking of five year old
>Alpha technology.
>
>(Hope I didn't scuff up the soap box too much.)
>
>And as long as I am at it here:
>ps -eo args | nawk -F_ 'NF == 3 && /ora_smon_/ {print $3}'
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Hemant K Chitale [mailto:hkchital_at_singnet.com.sg]
> > Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 8:19 AM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > Subject: SPARC-III v Alpha
> >
> >
> >
> > Does anyone have benchmark or comparative figures for Sun
> > SPARC v Compaq
> > (thenewhp) Alpha
> > for Oracle Databases ? I found some benchmark figures for
> > Datawarehouses
> > at the
> > Oracle website but not for OLTP [then again, the machines
> > configured for those
> > benchmarks were extra-large machines !].
> >
> >
> >
> > Hemant K Chitale
> > My web site page is : http://hkchital.tripod.com
> >
> >
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> > --
> > Author: Hemant K Chitale
> > INET: hkchital_at_singnet.com.sg
> >
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Hemant K Chitale
My web site page is : http://hkchital.tripod.com

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Hemant K Chitale
  INET: hkchital_at_singnet.com.sg

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