timasmith_at_hotmail.com (Tim Smith) wrote in message news:<a7234bb1.0303051508.4d2da069_at_posting.google.com>...
> Hein van den Heuvel <hein_netscape_at_eps.zko.dec.com> wrote in message news:<3E63C5E9.88569D3F_at_eps.zko.dec.com>...
> > 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.
>
> That makes sense, and I appreciate your comments. The only problem I
> have is that I find that simple I/O operations are much slower on VMS
> than AIX. I understand that this is a complex topic dependent on disk
> subsystems, disk speeds, etc etc but take this for example:
>
> I have two systems, one a Alpha 4100 with VMS 7.1 and a RS6000 H-50
> both with 2GB RAM and 2 processors. These systems were purchased
> around the same time for the same purpose and I would term them as
> comparable. I did simple file copies from the same disk to same disk.
> While I do not have the disk speeds, I used an older disk on the AIX
> (4GB) and a newer disk on VMS (12GB). I don't believe there was any
> fragmentation to consider.
>
> AIX: 297MB - 2MB/second, if repeated - 2.84MB/second
>
> VMS: 297MB - 1.02MB/second, if repeated - 1.19MB/second
>
> I don't mean to bash VMS, I just am trying to understand if it really
> comes close for I/O performance. I've seen several places that have
> to through a lot of hardware at performance bound applications. Any
> time I've done SQLPlus inserts they have been a lot faster on AIX. I
> know that many people still prefer VMS so I am trying to figure out
> why...
>
> Tim
There is a new Free and Open Source benchmark utility that allows you
to perform objective industry standard benchmarks against any SQL
database via ODBC or JDBC. It is available for download from:
<http://www.openlinksw.com> . Note that you can perform real-time
comparative benchmarks side by side (Oracle vs SQL Server for
instance) via a visual interface.
Received on Thu Mar 06 2003 - 11:09:44 CST
