Re: Opinions Wanted on Oracle for NT

aak2_at_Ra.MsState.Edu (Atif Ahmad Khan) wrote:

>mwagoner_at_iac.net (Mark Wagoner) writes:
 

>>In short, if you need a quick install with minimal administrative
>>maintenance and you are fairly small (100-200 users and < 50G data), NT is
>>a more cost-effective approache. If you already have the Unix
>>infrastructure and are planning to go large scale, use Unix.

>How is Oracle on NT more cost effective than Oracle on Solaris X86 ?
>Solaris X86 comes with lots of functionality. If I tried to add software
>to NT to make it more Unix-like I would end up spending lots of money and
>have a very ugly solution at the end. NT cant even handle incoming email!

Your first problem is trying to make NT more Unix like. You have to use the strenths each platform has to offer. And, what does mail have to do with Oracle? If you want email buy a POP server. By the way, NT comes with an email client.

>Also I am typing this message from Buffalo, NY and the posting nntp server is in
>Starkville, MS over a secure (ssh) connection, also have sqlplus fired up
>in another 'screen' session on the remote machine and editing some PL/SQL code
>and also am modifying crontab data in a different 'screen' session. I do it all
>the time. I depend on it. How would you do this under NT?

It is clear you have never used NT or you would know that this is possible. I am in my office in Cincinnati and I routinely dial into customer sights in LA, Vancouver, Chicago, etc. I can copy a file to the server's harddrive (or any other client on the remote network, if security allows it) while I simultaneously query the customer's database and our test database.

>Oh and while we are at it, NT has no 'mail' program. I use the Unix mail program
>to get SQL/PLUS to mail me reports all the time. How would I do that without
>dishing out lots of money and spending alot of my time under NT? It too me only
>a few minutes to get that done under Solaris.

What is your deal with mail??? If you really want to do something like that, NT comes with email.

>I could go on and on. But I have got to get back to work. When and if you find
>the answers to the above questions, come back and I'll give you some more.
 

>Atif Khan
>aak2_at_ra.msstate.edu

As I said, the capabilities are very similar between NT and Unix, just the scale at which they can be delivered. If you would put your emotions aside and actually try an NT box, you would see that it is Unix's baby brother. As another poster mentioned, NT is relativly new but in a few years it will be a much greater force to contend with.

Hate Microsoft all you want (I am not Bill's biggest fan), but the technologicaly superior product does not always win out. If it did, Linux would be on everybody's desktop and we wouldn't be having this conversation. The name of the game is ultimately money (unless you work in acadamia) so you have to go where the cash flows. And that, right now, is Microsoft. You can't just ignore NT.

--
Mark Wagoner
mwagoner_at_medplus.com (work)
mwagoner_at_iac.net     (life)