Re: ms-sql vs oracle on NT or UNIX?

In article <6c1gmo$1pa$1_at_hermes.is.co.za>, Billy Verreynne <vslabs_at_onwe.co.za> wrote:
>Joel Garry wrote in message <6bvk58$485$1_at_pebble.ml.org>...
>>
>>While I agree that it is much better to avoid a religious war, I have spent
>>a great deal of time with both on my desk, and have to agree with Fredrik.
>>NT lacks basic tools for working as a server - it was not designed as a
>>server, but merely positioned as one when it was greeted with a big yawn
>>by the vast majority of 3.1 users who saw no reason to upgrade.
>
>Agreed, I have had my fill with these o/s wars. But I have seen NT being
>used as a corporate database platform and the majority of the problem
>experienced is/was with the database and not the operating system. A
>properly configured operating system, be it NT, UNIX or Novell, will deliver
>within the capabilities of the hardware. On the administration side, NT is
>the easiest to administer and Unix the most difficult. My view point has
>always been that NT is an ideal platform for small to medium servers, and
>Unix for medium to large servers.

So you're saying that the reason NT servers have to be rebooted is because they are improperly configured? If so, I would have to say it is more difficult to configure them then many will admit. If not, NT is crap. All the other points can be easily (or not) worked around, but an OS that can't stay up for an arbitrary amount of time is really bad. And I've noticed some real problems with conflicts between service packs and apps. So my attitude now is, "fine, go ahead and use MS stuff, as long as I don't have to take responsibilty for it working. For the industrial strength needs of a growing organization, you will pay me to use Oracle on unix anyways." And of course, I continue to have to have two or more incompatible environments on my desk.

>
>Simple example. I would hate to support a customer that runs a video shop
>using a Unix backend - I shudder to think what they may inadvertently do it

Having done stuff like that (Xenix! Brought to you by... Bill Gates), I have to agree.

>(ever tried to recover a Unix file system after it was totally stuffed
>because they simply turn of the power switch at the end of every day?).

Amazingly enough, it often works to say "Don't do that."

>OTOH, I would not like to touch a 50+ GB database on NT either.

Now, why is that?

>
>The fact is that both operating systems are being used, and used very
>successfully, in many corporate environments for a variety of things. Simply
>knocking one because of a personal dislike is naive in my point of view. I

If it were that simple, I would have to agree. There just comes a point where you don't want to be a punching bag anymore. One can be a little more lenient for an app than an OS... It's not as if the people who are knocking it are not familiar with it. Is it any less naive to buy MS stuff because everyone else is? Isn't that a silly reason for an overwhelming majority of new apps to be MS-centric?

>love Oracle, but that does not say I should hate SQL-Server or Informix.

Depends whether there is a need for cheerleading. I'm _not_ a cheerleader, and I've posted plenty bad about Oracle.

>Sure there are fatures in Unix that you don't have in NT (I would kill for a
>more Unix-like command/scripting language in NT). And vice versa. But both
>operating systems is part of the server environment for Oracle.

Not necessarily. MPE is a server environment for Oracle, but so what?

>
>To answer a posting asking for technical considerations regarding SQL-Server
>vs. Oracle with an answer NT-sucks-because-I-don't-like-it is a bit pathetic
>IMO.
Not if a big part of the environment is specifically dedicated to a front end. Easy to use but blows up often is not real acceptable.

>
>As a side note : a thing that I would like to see discussed on usenet is
>running OPS on NT clusters vs Unix MPP. NT scalability has always been
>questioned. Is NT clusters the answer? And how does it compare to MPP
>technically and with price/performance?
>
>regards,
>Billy
>
>

-- 
These opinions are my own and not necessarily those of Information Quest
jgarry@eiq.com                           http://www.informationquest.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/joel_garry
"See your DBA?"  I AM the @#%*& DBA!