Re: Which platform is better?

This is a very religious question. It's like asking, which pizza is better, Papa Johns or Domino's? Sometimes upgrading to a new, faster box may not solve your problem either. It will depend on why you are having the problem. Is it network related or is it purely a database issue. What has been done to tune the database, or even the applications/sql queries. A faster box may help, but then again, maybe not.

My personal preference would be to run as fast as possible away from NT and if I were to stay with unix, go to a Compaq Alpha running Tru64 unix . Much nicer machine than a peecee. I have seen a single processor alpha (500Mhz) outrun even a new 850Mhz Intel/NT system. These boxes were designed to be beat and they just run and run and run.

That aside, now comes my professional opinion. Stay with AIX, since you already have the expertise in house, get a current RS6000 or what ever IBM is plugging today. While you can run on some of the new PeeCee's they are IMHO still a PeeCee. This will also make migration a snap. Install latest Oracle, export from old database, import into new system. Same file systems etc...

Michael Austin
DBA Consultant

"Paul R. Johnson" wrote:

> I currently am running Oracle 7.3.4 on AIX 4.3.1.0. We have this on a
> 3 processor 333mhz RS/6000 with 1gb ram. We a having occasional
> problems with performance, but nothing too bad. We are running a
> Point of Sale and scheduling application from Windows Terminal Server.
> There are usually 80-100 concurrent users on the system with only
> about half of them banging on it.
>
> Our lease is up on the RS/6000 and we are considering 2 options:
>
> 1. Have an AIX expert audit the system for performance and add
> memory, disks, etc as necessary. Then have an Oracle DBA do the same.
> I am currently using a contract DBA. I think that we can get more out
> of this machine.
>
> 2. Buy an new NT/2000 server. This is where I would know what I was
> talking about and able to make recommendations. I am looking at a
> dual Xeon 700mhz/1mb cache, 2+gb ram, 8 9gb hard drives configured for
> RAID 10. This should be a speedy box.
>
> We are probably going to migrate to 8.x in the near future. Which is
> better for the oracle version that we have now and the future?
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Paul
>
> Paul R. Johnson
> IT Manager
> Spa Sydell
> pjcace at yahoo dot com
Received on Sat Jul 21 2001 - 16:07:06 CDT