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Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.server -> Re: How long will 8.1.7 survive?
Richard,
I think your last sentence - "Now, do you really want to be like my Gran when you go for a job and they ask you questions on 9i ..." - is interesting. What's good for the DBA may not always be what is good for the enterprise. From a DBA's perspective, complexity and change is good - keeps us busy and hopefully marketable. From the enterprise's perspective, it means more database work, ergo more or more expensive DBA's, increasing hardware requirements etc. If the application works fine on the existing version, is stable and no changes are planned, what advantage is it to the enterprise to add more capability etc. other than avoiding the planned obsolesence of the database platform? If the application will run just as well on the new improved MySQL, would it be in my best interest to recommend dropping the Oracle license and going GNU after investing years in learning how to spell Orcale?
The software industry does have a habit of coercing their customers into upgrades, e.g. the old one isn't supported or something essential won't work with it anymore. Since once committed to a platform, it's hard to change, the customer hasn't a lot of options. In the world I envision, a customer would upgrade when they had a need for a new feature, capability etc. or realized a real benefit in performance, security and the like, not be forced to by the vendor. Purchasing extended support might be an option in some cases.
As you described though, in most cases it's better to keep up than to have to make a giant leap from having waited for too many versions. I just start planning for the next version as soon as the present one is installed. Nevertheless I wonder sometimes whatever happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
fdp
P.S. Oh yeah - I'm driving an '88 car. Just can't think of a reason to upgrade.
Richard Foote wrote:
>
> Hi Tingl,
>
> My dear old gran, she loved her gramophone, playing such golden oldies as
> "We'll Meet Again", "White Xmas", "When The Saints Go Marching In" and "A
> Space Oddity". Those old 78s would have a few scratches and sound a bit
> rough, but when the horn was freshly dusted, gee they sounded good. Nothing
> wrong with them at all, they worked just great.
>
> Unfortunately, when the latest Daniel O'Donnell DVD come out, she was
> stuffed. She had no idea what to do, how to work it, how to set it up, had
> no understanding of surround sound, how to use the remote, how to play it or
> even where to put the DVD ("but Richard my dear favourite gran son, where
> the hell is the horn on this thing, the damn horn"). It took her over 2
> hours to work out how to open the case (she was getting on a bit).
>
> Now, do you really want to be like my Gran when you go for a job and they
> ask you questions on 9i ....
>
> Cheers
>
> Richard
> "tingl" <tlam15_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:f487699f.0209160957.2c4d3c51_at_posting.google.com...
> > Nuno Souto <nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam> wrote in message
> news:<3d8336f8$0$18869$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au>...
> > > 13 Sep 2002 14:20:29 -0700, tingl said (and I quote):
> > > >
> > > > Just launch the installer or any Java based utilities come with 8i,
> > > > see how much memory jre is taking up and how much slower they run. No
> > >
> > > Yeah, but that's hardly Oracle's fault that the jre eats memory, no?
> > > Try a later jre. I find they use less memory since 1.3 came out.
> > >
> >
> > No, Oracle only makes the decision to use Java for that purpose.
> >
> > > > In many respects, I find 7.3.4 easier to manage than 8i. At least I
> > > > don't have to worry about the features I don't need, even the patches
> > > > are much smaller.
> > >
> > > Hmm, obviously you don't have to do much space management in that
> > > database... And moving stuff around. And fine tuning.
> > >
> >
> > You are right and it should not be much work to do it in 7.3.4 either.
> >
> > > > features and have to find out how to remove them. I have never heard
> > > > anybody said 7.3 tunning is harder than 8i.
> > >
> > > Yet it is. There is not much you can do in 7 to tune the database
> > > itself. 8i has so much more that can be done it's not even funny to
> > > compare. Start with the LMTs and the multiple buffer pools and IOT and
> > > go from there. I won't even mention the function-based indexes. Oops,
> I
> > > just did! ;)
> > >
> >
> > I have to disagree. There is a great deal can be tuned in 7.3.4. More
> > features do not have to mean better. Many people convert to LMT just
> > because it is a new feature. In reality, if the database is properly
> > configured there is no need to do so. Many Java based utilities like
> > database and network configuration tools tend to be unreliable, I
> > often resort to doing them manually anyway. BTW, I do not use the
> > features above as they do not benefit our applications.
> >
> > >
> > > > Why buy a VCR with multitude of functions, when all you need is
> > > > playback. It just makes it harder to find the "play" button on your
> > > > remote.
> > >
> > > You may find that most VCR's with multitude of functions also have a
> much
> > > better image quality and can rewind/fast forward a lot quicker.
> >
> > Unfortunately this is not completely true for 8i. If Oracle 8i's new
> > features does not benefit the applications I am using, then it is not
> > any faster than 7.3.4 on my existing hardware. The bottom line
> > question is: If 7.3.4 gives me everything I need, what is the need to
> > upgrade?
Received on Wed Sep 18 2002 - 07:55:39 CDT
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