Re: oracle benchmarks on VMS

Tim Smith wrote:

> I see Oracle publishes some benchmarks at
> http://www.oracle.com/apps_benchmark/, but notably there is nothing
> for VMS - is that because Oracle writes to the filesystem, not direct
> to device file files directly i.e. VMS filesystem is a lot slower than
> raw devices?

It has nothing to do with (potential) speed. It is just a commercial / marketing decision mostly from Oracle. They decided there was not enough critical mass to maintain support for the Oracle Applicaiton suite on VMS. The database itself is and will be supported at one of the higher tier levels. Details are not up to me, but it used to be product release on VMS 90 days after first release. Please verify with Oracle. They may also choose to skip 'dot' releases. Dunno, let's say they had 9.0, skipped 9.1 but released 9.2. Again, this is not a statement of support, just a line of thinking. Check with Oracle.

The VMS Filesystem is actually an advantage! The VMS filesystem does NOT buffer data.
On Unix systems the OS tends to waste time and memory buffering Oracle data pages which are better managerd by Oracle in its buffer pool (SGA). On many Unix implementation, for ultimate Oracle perfromance once has to deal with hard-to-manage 'Raw Devices' to avoid said buffering. On VMS you have the comfort of a file system for Alloaction, Naming and backups yet the speed of a raw device. On HP Tru64 Unix Oracle can (and will) use the DIRECT IO feature to get the same effect on single systems as well as in clusters.

> If anyone has older benchmarks that include VMS I would like to see
> them.

It would be nice to see some VMS / Oracle benchmark, but I will not hold my breath.
Benchmarks require major investment which both companies believe is better spend on the products itself. VMS will offer comparable (ballpark) performance as Unix on the same platform. It will not be 2x slower. It might be a little slower or a a little faster depending on the application.
The performance will be close enough to focus on other, more important, platform decision factors: Cost-of-ownership, Reliability, Availability, Experience, Applications, Installed base,..

Hope this helps some, but it is just an opinion from a guy in the sidelines.
Be sure to contact officials at Oracle and HP for the official positions.

Cheers,

    Hein. Received on Mon Mar 03 2003 - 15:15:21 CST