Re: Question about Undo segments

Far be it from me to defend Oracle at the moment, but there is actual method in their madness. When rollback is handled automatically, there can be a difference in the approach you need to take. For example, the set transaction use rollback segment X command doesn't work any more. So how do you arrange for bulk load rollback not to hammer small job (OLTP) rollback, for example? With traditional rollback, you created multiple rollback tablespaces, housed them on seaparate disks, and had one or two big segments in one, and lots of small ones in another. With automatic rollback, there can only be one active rollback tablespace at a time. So now your approach must be to create the one tablespace, but make it comprise multiple datafiles on lots of different disks, so that the *total* rollback load is spread across devices. Quite a different approach. (You can always use RAID, of course, but that's a different story).

My point is, the DBA should behave differently with automatic mode than s/he used to do with traditional rollback. So the name change really isn't just a marketing exercise. Your thought patterns and approach to configuration should change depending on the mode you're in, so highlighting the fact isn't actually too bad an idea. As Pete points out in another post, there are some technical changes, too, that justifies the name change: stealing extents can't happen with traditional segments. And the segment allocation policy is quite different, too.

There's another name change in 9i I can think of: MTS has become Shared Server. Exactly the same configuration, but a name change. That again strikes me as a very good name change, and perfectly justifiable: there was nothing multi-threaded about MTS on a Unix box. MTS was, of course, multithreaded on NT -but so was dedicated server! "Shared Server" is both technically more accurate, and better describes what the configuration is actually all about.

So I reckon that these are acceptable and reasonable name changes when all is said and done. As for the various product name changes you mention, I wouldn't know, and wouldn't attempt to defend them! They do rather smack of marketing got busy, but I guess without marketing, I might not be in a job at all.

Regards
HJR "Daniel Morgan" <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote in message news:3CCD7468.983BDA89_at_exesolutions.com...
> "Howard J. Rogers" wrote:
>
> Howard please answer the following question.
>
> Why, if you know, does Oracle make gratuitous name changes to things?
>
> All this does is create confusion and the name change does not convey a
single
> bit of useful information above and beyond the name rollback.
>
> Lets see now we tried Context. We tried InterMedia. Lets come up with
another
> name. We tried SQL*Forms and SQL*Reports. We tried Developer. We tried
> Developer/2000. We tried Internet Developer Suite. I know ... we'll come
up
> with still another name. Good grief. It strikes me that someone in
marketing
> has way too much time on their hands.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Daniel Morgan
>
Received on Mon Apr 29 2002 - 13:44:27 CDT