Selecting Platform

Advice appreciated...

A friend with a small business is finally ready to make an investment to eliminate ~6 hours of employee bookwork every day. I would like to use Oracle as the database. Cost is certainly a factor and of course I should be able to justify my decisions. We have discussed a rough budget target and it appears we have 3 major options as outlined below. Perhaps those readers with experience in any of these scenarios would be willing to contribute advice?

Some considerations regardless of which platform is chosen: 1. I want Oracle support. I think it would be foolish not to be able to get the tech support available with something like the bronze support level. Given the many remarks here and elsewhere regarding the need for tech support, this sounds essential.
2. Bronze support (as I understand it) would also include a years worth of free upgrades and patches. I believe 8.1 will be out soon and is expected to offer some interesting functionality that may be useful down the road
(more java integration, bug fixes, integrated JVM, integrated ORB, others?).
While 8.1 isn't essential for what I want to do now, access to updates / patches is essential. Are these not available without a support package? 3. Client side development using Oracle's thin JDBC drivers. Given remarks in comp.lang.java.databases, tech support or access to what have been referred to as 'versions of the drivers only available from Oracle tech support, not from the web site' may also be a reason to have a support contract.

I have no first hand experience with Oracle support so please advise if these remarks aren't accurate.

On to the platforms...

Netware
Recently Oracle and Novell have announced a bundling of Oracle 8 with netware. According to their web sites, a 5 user license to Oracle 8 is available for existing and new licensees of any Netware 4.1 based product. Netware for Small business bundle includes everything we would need at an attractive price: Netware 4.1, FastTrack, Groupwise, 5 user license for $923. Obviously a $1500 Oracle license (without support) included for this price is unbeatable. HOWEVER I asked an Oracle sales rep to find out if the license included with Netware is limited in any way (time bombed, etc.) and if I could purchase the support option to get the same Oracle support I would get if I bought the license from Oracle and paid for the bronze support level. She has not returned my call in 2 weeks, though she was initially helpful. I asked Novell customer support the same questions and apparently 'she guesses' it is a full non time bombed license. After checking with a novell tech person I was told the product includes Oracle 7. something, and 8 will only be available sometime after Netware 5 ships in August. Does anyone know what is going on here? Why is it so difficult to get this info? Many small businesses are considering NT Small business server with SQL server, the Novell Oracle bundle would appear to be a very attractive alternative.
How is Novell as a platform for Oracle? (I have seen this discussed here before, any other comments appreciated).

NT
I would rather not use NT for many reasons. Oracle certainly is aggressively targeting the NT platform and devoting a lot to products for it. Should I more seriously consider it?

Sun Sparc Solaris
Recently Sun has created the Ultra 5s server starting at $3295. I have been unable thus far to figure out how Sun support, software subscriptions, and additional 'Intranet Extensions' package affect the price. I will post these questions to one of the comp.sys.sun groups. Also Oracle does not list a price for Solaris on their web site, but I will assume it is the same
(~$2000 w/ support). This is roughly within our budget, and it may provide
the best solution. On a related issue, the java station (if actually available) would make a fine client for this particular business, basically point of sale java based client to the Oracle server. Obviously this solution is targeted to 'enterprise' level customers, but I wonder if it wouldn't be possible in this case.

Oracle bundled with Novell seems the best deal, if support can be purchased reasonably and if the latest version of Oracle is actually available. I think I would rather have the Solaris combination, but it is hard to ignore a free Oracle license with Novell. I will eventually get the appropriate bundle information from Oracle (I hope), but any advice regarding the above choices (or others not listed here) would be greatly appreciated. Received on Tue Jun 30 1998 - 16:06:38 CDT