Re: Oracle Past and Present...

On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 11:54:14 -0400, "Scott Watson" <swatson_at_datachest.com> wrote:

>Are Oracle DBAs really pushing the use of these new tools/utilities and if
>so are you or some other administrator supporting them?

I am. Dunno about others. Quite find them useful for more complete app designs.

>Personally, I
>believe Oracle should stick with making their database product solid.

It used to be a serious problem. I believe it's solid enough since about 8.0.6/8.1.7. Nothing new there, if anything it's much better - V6 didn't get stable until 6.0.36!

>a **newer** version. For example, adding a servlet engine inside the
>database in my opinion just blurs the lines as to where the problem may be.

Au contraire. I find it very useful. Given that servlets will be used to implement most EJBs, I'd say I'd like them to run as fast as possible. In the same node as the DB if feasible. Even in the same address space, but I don't insist on that one.

>Now when someone complains of a performance problem it is certainly the
>database but where?

SQL. Inadequate design or coding. Usually due to poor porting of stuff designed for other environments. Source of 99% of ORACLE performance problems I've experienced over the years. And still the main culprit.

> If I want a servlet engine why not use a product
>tailored to that task instead of 1 product that can do it all making it
>harder to support.

It's not a product that can do it all. It's a product that works closely with the RDBMS engine, but is not intrinsic to it. Nothing wrong with that in my book. Just about what every other database supplier does, so why should O behave differently?

>To me it feels like the Oracle server is growing at a
>rate similar to what MS Word grew. (200+ features when only 10% of them were
>used). Guessing of course!!!
>

That unfortunately is only gonna get worse. I think they should "partition" it more than just EE and SE, though. Agree partially here.

>Remember we moved away from monolithic programs to n-tier because it was
>supposed to be better, but to me it seems that Oracle is going back in time
>with its new direction of using the database for everything. I understand
>that a company needs to grow but, I think they are sacrificing their DB
>product at the cost of delivering a total solution.
>

If I understood the contents of 9i and 9iAS environments properly, the exact opposite has happened: it's gone from a monolithic block of 8/8i to a more flexible architecture. I may be wrong in my interpretation, though.

>Anyway, I would just like to get some comments on how others feel and to
>find out if I am alone with the world to come/if not already arrived!!!
>

Nah, don't worry. In another coupla years we'll all be running desktop systems with 10Gb of main memory, a 5GHz CPU or more and disk capacities of 200Gb+. Think what the servers will be like then! What will the desktops be running? MS Office of course. And still producing reams of printed output for the "paperless office"... ;-)

Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam Received on Wed Aug 22 2001 - 05:03:09 CDT