Re: Oracle on a Mainfram?

On Tue, 08 May 2001 20:37:13 GMT, bmanry_at_us.oracle.com (Bill Manry) wrote:

>On Mon, 07 May 2001 22:27:12 GMT, willjamu_at_mindspring.com (James
>Williams) wrote:
>>Not sure what you mean. There are special programs that allow the
>>OS/390 instruction set to run on RISC and INTEL based machines. The
>>OS/390 or now called Z/OS has a Posix compliant kernel that allows it
>>to run UNIX apps. Also, the mainframe can be partitioned into a
>>LINUX server. Before I was an Oracle and UNIX, NT guy I was a mainfame
>>heavy. I know of several shops that run Oracle on the OS/390 server
>>but not sure about Financials.
>
>Oracle runs on OS/390 or z/OS and can be the database server for
>Oracle Financials running on your favorite Unix or whatever. I think
>that is what he was referring to.

OK, lesse. James, you claim that you used to be a mainframe heavy. Familiar with OS/390 assembler? Remember the BALR R14,R15 that starts just about every program in an IBM mainframe? Good. Now, that instruction does NOT exist in any of the code put out by ORACLE for the Unix environment, no matter which one. Because the hardware instruction set of UNIX boxes is completely different from the hardware instruction set of the IBM mainframes.

This means that you can have as many UNIX or Posix compliant partitions created in your os/390, but none of them will execute a program compiled for a UNIX box. So, no go for any of the code that Oracle writes for UNIX, running in a os/390 partition. Not unless you get a hardware emulator running in that partition. Which I believe is not possible.

Now, the suggestion for running Oracle as a database server in os/390 (using the version of Oracle specifically compiled in an IBM mainframe) and using that as the server for financials running in a Unix box: perfectly feasible, AFAIK.

HTH Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_bigpond.net.au.nospam
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/the_Den/index.html Received on Wed May 09 2001 - 04:47:50 CDT