Re: Oracle on SUN --> Oracle on DEC Aplha + Digital Unix ?

In article <6ervd0$ga3$1_at_scream.auckland.ac.nz>, Alan MCCulloch <amccullo_at_ccu1.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>Hi
>
>We are currently running Oracle 7.2 on an ageing SUN Sparc2.
>
>Because of a good hardware price, there is a proposal to
>upgrade to a DEC Alpha, Digital Unix, rather than the
>original SUN upgrade we intended.
>
>Does anybody have any experience or views on this as a good
>or bad idea ?

Having worked on all three, my considered opinion is that it is nearly a tossup.

Looking ahead speculatively a couple of years, I think Alpha/unix will carve out a little niche for itself (perhaps ex-VMS high-end places that got scared off Rdb?), and whether Compaq understands that or interprets it as a profitable thing is a crapshoot. Few companies have ever been able to scale computers well. Perhaps Sun will be firmly 64 bits or more by then. In any case, being on Oracle will let you migrate easily if the worst happens to either Sun or the Alpha line, so long as you don't let the legacy stuff go too long. Even if Alpha goes away completely, there will be support of one sort or another for a number of years. Some places still run PDP-11's, after all... :)

>
>There is some concern that we may be moving to a less popular
>UNIX, possibly less supported and with a doubtful future.

Even if it goes away, it won't be sudden.

>There are also some learning curve issues, and the need
>to convert our SQL*Forms "legacy" apps to Developer 2k/Forms 4.5,
>whereas under a SUN upgrade we can run them as they are
>(connectintg via SQL*Net).
>
>(We are not planning to use Developer 2K /Forms 4.5
>as our future client, so this would be a one off learning
>curve. We are into Delphi and Java/HTML)
>
>Thanks for any advice / experience
>
>Alan McCulloch
>
>

-- 
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