Re: Oracle on Novell

Dan,

Thanks for you input. I really appreciate it. I agree that the application is getting rather large for the Wintel platform. However, it is currently running on a DEC Alpha under Unix, and DEC support has been nothing short of abominable. We were down for 5 days before the problem got escalated high enough for someone to finally say, "Oh, you need the secret patch for that." Compaq and DEC deserve each other; they both have a fondness for keeping vital information "close to the vest."

What I am trying to do is put the Oracle stuff on a platform that we (mostly) understand, have lots of support (from newsgroups and other pioneers), have plenty of choices for hardware variants, and the hardware price is kept down by competition. Thus, ... the Intel x86+ platform, which may not be adequate for the task. I have the disk facilities and speed -- the same ones I would use on Unix (from Winchester Systems www.winsys.com -- really fast RAID-5 arrays). What I need is something to run Oracle as a server. The applications will remain on the Alpha. (That's the only reason I can even consider WinNT, which is too unstable if you actually run any applications other than something rock solid like Oracle.) The data divides itself nicely into two independent databases, so I can use a two machine cluster to spread the load and get failover support.

I think I'm committed to at least trying this approach. Doesn't cost a bunch to test it. However, if I can really get 30% better performance on Netware, where I also have better support for very large data files, I need to take a serious look at that possibility.

I'm one of those people who still believe in Novell. Once more people recognize that there's a big difference in "industrial strength" networks, and that application servers and network servers don't have to be the same thing, the basic Novell architecture, particularly as it has been re-invented in Netware 5, is likely to enjoy a resurgence. Too many of our clients have jumped on the NT bandwagon and regretted it severely. Novell has shipped some pretty strong products lately, has acquired some serious Java talent, and has a good story to tell if they can get above the noise level. (My Netware 3.11 server says it's been running for 895 days; I remember taking it down to add some memory almost three years ago. My NT server was last rebooted yesterday, and looks like it may need to be rebooted any minute...)

Rog

peacocda_at_wwwinc.com wrote in message <6l162m$nit$1_at_nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>As much as I am a Novell apolligist, I think your application is too big
for a
>workgroup OS like Novell or NT. You may have to go with a flavor of Unix.
>Now, here's something to consider. NDS for HPU-UX should available soon,
but
>I haven't seen a press release yet. NDS is available for SCO Unix. What
you
>would gain is the managability of NDS on a hefty application serving
platform.
>I would agree that NetWare 5 will make life much easier for large
databases,
>but I think yours is getting to the obscenely large, which is really beyond
>Novell and NT.
>
>My $0.02
>
>Dan Peacock, CNA
>Bus. Sys. Analyst/DBA
>Wolverine World Wide
>
>In article <6kvnb5$itt$1_at_news1.rmi.net>,
> "Roger Loeb" <rloeb_at_martech.com> wrote:
>>
>> An Oracle "insider" told me that Oracle 8 on Netware 4.1 runs about 30%
>> faster than Oracle 8 on NT4 (with otherwise equivalent resources). Is
there
>> any independent confirmation of that statement available? 30% is a lot!
>>
>> Our application is a large (1 terabyte+) database with heavy query demand
>> (small queries returning, on average, less than 30 rows, but more than 1
>> million queries an hour). There are some other Novell features that are
>> attractive for very large databases, and Netware 5 will eliminate the
>> IPX/SPX headache. I also understand that Novell has released some sort
of
>> failover/clustering support, although I don't think that Oracle has
>> implemented Failsafe for Novell.
>>
>> Any suggestions, useful information, insight, etc. I'm sure tired of NT
>> servers that have to be rebooted every day!!!
>>
>> Rog
>>
>> --
>> roger@_delete_this_to_reply_.martech.com
>>
>>
>
>
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Received on Tue Jun 02 1998 - 12:37:29 CDT