Oracle-L: Re: Solaris vs Windows 2000

From: James J. Morrow <jmorrow_at_warthog.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 22:38:19 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.00500911.20021111223819@fatcity.com>

Jared --

I tend to agree with your statements. Although, personally, I tend to think that Windows NT/2000/XP is a wholly inappropriate environment for any enterprise database. The general reasons I tend to choose to back my statements:

Scalability. (I'm sorry, "clustering" is an availability solution, not a scalability one. If you can't grow beyond 4 CPUs [Intel's problem more than M$FT's, here] and need to, then an Intel platform is not for you.)
Managibility. I can do practically anything I need to on a unix box over a 300bps modem, if necessary. (This omits, of course, inserting media and hitting the power switch... oh, and installing oracle now that they have this java-based installer... fortunately, that's not *that* common of an occurance in ordinary "maintenance")
Did I mention scalability? Most *nix platforms scale in a much more "linear" fashion. (i.e. 2 cpu's are more likely to give you double the performance on a RISC-based system than on an x86 based one.) Note: I'm saying only that RISC systems tend to be *more* linear than x86 ones.
Supportability. (yeah, I know, not really a word). I've supported Oracle on both (especially Oracle Applications). Personally, unix platforms tend to provide much more useful information when something does go wrong. The standard Microsoft error message of "it's broke" doesn't really tell me anything useful.
Security. How many security flaws have been found in 'doze? And don't even get me started on M$FT Look-out! (otherwise known as a security hole that occasionally delivers mail). It's also nice that *nix platforms are immune to all of the _really_common_ virii that hit the news these days (Melissa, I Love You, etc.). (Not that *nix is truly immune to virii... but the big-bad-ugly-ones you hear about tend to exploit flaws in... hows that again? Right... Windows and Lookout... Although it helps somewhat that the *nix security model tends to compartmentalize things a bit more than windows does [by default]).
Do you *really* want all of the overhead of a tightly-coupled GUI on a _server_?

Admittedly, Windows 2000 does appear to be far more stable than previous versions. And the NT-derivatives don't tend to crash in a wholesale manner like the Windows/386 derivatives ('95,'98,ME). But, personally, I should _NEVER_ have to reboot a machine to upgrade/patch a web browser.

James

James J. Morrow
Nascent Systems, Inc.
Dallas, TX
mailto:jmorrow_at_warthog.com

Jared.Still_at_radisys.com wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> Believe me, I am not trying to rehash an old topic, start any
> flame wars, nor look for supporting evidence for my admitted
> bias toward unix operating systems.
>
> Now that that's out of the way, what I am trying to do is find
> objective material comparing the use of MS Windows 2000
> Server on Intel HW to Solaris on Sun HW.
>
> This is for an SAP implementation. We are currently running
> SAP 4.0b on MS NT 4.0 SP 6, on Dell 4 CPU Servers. ( I forget
> just which server )
>
> As part of our process to upgrade the system to 4.6c and more
> recent versions of Oracle ( like 8.1.7 ), we are trying to do a
> comparison of the features, benefits and advantages of using
> Win2k Server and Solaris.
>
> Please don't refer me to such sites as www.kirch.net and
> www.osdata.com. The information at www.kirch.net is dated
> and applies to NT, not Win2k.
>
> osdata.com is a nice site, but doesn't really offer comparisons,
> just information on each OS.
>
> There is quite a bit of material available at www.microsoft.com.
>
> Try: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evaluation/compare/
>
> PC Mag has a nice article comparing different platforms for use as a
> webserver: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,6615,00.asp
>
> They actually chose IBM running Windows 2000.
>
> Windows 2000 is in use here as a server platform for one database that
> is used as the backend to a rather troublesome application. The Win2k
> server is running Oracle 8.1.6.2. The database has been bounced 2 or
> 3 times in the last year.
>
> Once was to clear up a strange but non-fatal problem with Oracle. That
> was
> back in July, the previous system restart had been in December 2001.
> Server
> and database were up without interruption for 7 months.
>
> Though I prefer Solaris, I'm having a difficult time coming up with many
> valid
> reasons for recommending it over Win2k.
>
> A few that I do have:
>
> Sun service is superior to Dell service. They've proven this to us. ( We
> have other
> Sun machines in house )
>
> Sun scales better. At least on 32 bits. We're at 4 CPU's. If we need to
> go past that
> I would think we should go with Sun. I don't know about Win2k Advanced
> Server, as it
> is a 64 bit platform, and I think the licensing would go up quite a bit.
>
> I welcome all objective comparisons of Solaris and Win2k Server, whether
> your own
> thoughts, or a link or links to articles you are aware of.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jared
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
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-- 
Author: James J. Morrow
  INET: jmorrow_at_warthog.com

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Received on Tue Nov 12 2002 - 00:38:19 CST