Within Arcserve you can startup/shutdown Oracle using the pre/post scripts.
We use that very succesfully.
I run 8 instances on one dual processor Compaq NT server, with an average of
40 users. The largest instance is 12GB in size, with several 4 million
record tables. The machine is much faster than our HP G30 (which of course
is an older machine).
--
Terry Dykstra (TeamPS)
Canadian Forest Oil Ltd.
Leonard F. Clark wrote in message <3672ac88.30120300_at_news.prestel.co.uk>...
>I can't point you to any papers that answer your concerns: I guess
>Oracle is more concerned to say how much better than SQL Server Oracle
>is on Nt than how much weaker it is than on bigger platforms.
>
>I've been scanning the literature for a while now and, if it's there,
>I've missed it. I *have* implemented a couple of NT systems, though,
>and can tell you a little of our experiences.
>
>The most recent is Oracle 7.3.4 on a Compaq with 4 x PII (not sure
>what speed - not massive). The main table is 6.5 Gb, sized for 13 Gb;
>the rest probably add another Gig or two.
>
>Subjective response is that it does seem considerably slower than Unix
>(I've used HPUK and AIX mainly). Obviously, you could work around
>this to some extent - including using parallel server - but the
>problems aren't only raw speed.
>
>What are my main concerns?
>
>1. (As you imply) NT resilience. It's probably better than you imply,
>but still not as good as UNIX. On a previous system (with NT 3.51) we
>had a lot of problems with memory leakage and the system would hang at
>least once a week. We haven't had that with the current system (NT4)
>but the system fluctuates greatly in performance - which appears often
>as poor response from Oracle. (We are running on Citrix Winframe so I
>don't know how much the problem is native NT and how much Citrix.)
>That brings me to the second problem.
>
>2. Poorly thought out support infrastructure
>
>Because NT is a PC-thing, it's usually supported by some PC/LAN team
>rather than the system admin/ network boys. I've found they simply do
>not have the expertise to manage the kind of infrastructure Oracle
>needs. (For example, our Sys Adm - who is a very willing guy - was
>bowled over by the idea of my automating shutdown/startups. They were
>already taking system backups using ArcServe and had no idea that this
>was problematic for Oracle. We are now scheduling our mini-batch from
>Dr Solomon's Virus Checker!!!!) I've also found that the level of NT
>expertise is generally quite low: again, where I am currently is
>really a Novell shop so they are still learning NT and surrounding
>tools.
>
>3. Poorly defined technical infrastructure.
>
>The biggest beef is no simply equivalent to shell scripts. Do you use
>Rexx (ex-mainframers' answer), Perl (some ex-UNIXers' answer), C
>(developers' answer), one of the scripting tools that are out there or
>something like GNU tools for PC? Any would do but getting a decision
>oin a standard approach is nigh on impossible. So I'm developing
>tools in C (e.g. to clear down directories of files more than x days
>old - a sinch using find on UNIX) and only a handful of people have
>the expertise to support it.
>
>4. Ill defined requirements/design - the killer for me.
>
>My guess is that the vast majority of Oracle systems on NT are apps
>that were originally designed for Access or some similar tool and they
>have either grown beyond the capacity of the tool or there is a
>realisation that more sophisticated security is required. The
>Access/VB front end is left in place and connection is made via ODBC.
>Whatever the performance is like on NT Oracle, it's worse through
>ODBC. Then Access seems to make 5 queries of the database for every
>one actual query. It works differently and the code needs to be
>differently designed. (Our designers are struggling valiantly with
>pass-through queries but they don't understand SQL and keep falling
>back on the known Access methods.) The ODBC is always Microsoft's or
>Oracle's, which are pretty flakey at the best of times and provide a
>weak link for the sake of saving a few hundred quid on a decent
>flavour.
>
>Don't get me wrong, like you I think it's horses for courses and NT
>Oracle is probably a super solution for small data marts that are
>accessed by a handful of people, maybe with something like Business
>Objects on the box too. But I hope you can pursuade your people not
>to use it for more than a few Gbytes.
>
>Len
>> I was asking for pointers to articles to print out and give THEM.
I've
>>read the benchmarks that said given identical applications on a terabyte
size
>>DB, Oracle/UNIX was able to service roughly 3X as many connections as
>>Oracle/NT, I know that NT doesn't scale well for enterprise, there is the
>>sheer number of layers that NT apps must go through vs. the micro-kernel
>>architecture of UNIX, there is the remote administration problem, and
given
>>the fact that Oracle/NT doesn't have a raw partition, it is therefore is
once
>>again filtered through NT, thereby placeing more software between you and
your
>>data. But these are observations, not printable articles, which is what I
>>think will be most convincing.
>> For the record this is for a terabyte, multi-media DB. I don't want
butt
>>heads, I just was looking for some pointers to articles. If you don't
want to
>>help, please, please, don't respond. I don't need the condescension.
Thanks
>>to all those who gave helpful pointers. It is greatly appreciated.
>>
>
Received on Tue Dec 15 1998 - 10:57:11 CST
