Re: Oracle: Naked King in database land?

Sleeves rolling up...

Well, nothing wrong with vi - as the lads say it's pretty powerful. But I would have to say you get from it what you put in

same for Emacs, TPU(an old VAX editor), the MVS 3.4 editor , and even Microsoft Word .

I'm speaking from experience on Win2000 (last 3 years running 8i - last 15 months running 90 and 92 )
tablesizes small to reasonably large.

database crashing ... I've run out of space yes. Crashing no. reinstalling no. shutting down on insert no.

As for 4030s - yes but only on a Dynix 24-processor box where the sysadmin wouldn't listen to me about shared memory.

Expert Client - don't know.

Patches : yes - take the major patchset available but there's normally only one - e.g if you install 92 then all you need is 9203 set. If you open a TAR then you must deal with the Oracle support mentality. This is why for me opening a TAR is an absolute last resort (if anyone from metals is reading this - you've won. Congratulations. Self -reliance really is good for me.)

ORA-600s mean you should open a tar. See previous point. However quick searches of metalink usually point you in the right direction as to what you're doing wrong and it's actually only in rare cases that it can't be easily traced.

I hate the client too. It's bloated beyond belief(nb : only if plain ODBC is what you want to do) . one of my long-term projects is to figure out a minimized install response file that allows the absolute minimum to get a Win client to get an ODBC link going. However it does work. I use it out of the box. ODBC ora driver is freely downloadable both from OTN and Microsoft UDA. Note they are different drivers. Most clients I've seen use the MS one. This is probably why it's not included.

Blobs ? Don't know.

Queries forcing Autoextend ? (if not TEMP or RBS ) then I don't know what's going on.. but things Autoextend for a reason.

The P4 bug on the install ( I think that's what you were referring to) happened because 817 came out before the P4 did. Ya can't test on what's not there.

As for the optimizer not an expert but it does work and work well if you've put the work in. Ya gotta collect stats

Dropping and re-opening connections is a big operation for Oracle. The best way to operate with CGI is documented out there. However it can connect sub-second in dedicated server mode.

I am using Oracle to do most of the things you mention in the last paragraph.

However it's not a (for want of a word) kids database.

HTH Telemachus

"Anne" <anne_at_thereistoomuchspam.com> wrote in message news:9oqia.9952$Pp.1241589_at_amsnews03.chello.com...
> Hi,
>
> I am getting quite frustrated about Oracle and would like to get an idea
if
> I am just being stupid, doing everything wrong, accidently using Beta
> versions or using the wrong OS or just unlucky or what? I am getting the
> impression that Oracle is
> like the vi text-editor: for freaks only and even freaks are quite easy to
> beat using most more modern software solutions.
>
> I am constantly having problems with Oracle server on three hardware
> platforms, AMD and Intel, 1+ Ghz, 1.5+ Gbyte, no Raid, Raid 0, 1, 1+0, 5,
> enough free disk and table space. All on MS Windows 2000 server (maybe
that
> is the problem?) and win NT, Win2K and WinXP as client. Oracle 9.01 and
> 9.02. The problems below occur only when using tables larger than about
250
> 000 records, but on amounts below that I would really consider using
> MS-Access or something the like (don't start on transactions, multi-user,
> security etc., to me that's the vi freak - much used argument for little
> used features - point of view)
>
> Problems encountered in the last few weeks:
> * crashing the whole database running an insert query, having to reinstall
> and rebuild the whole thing (once)
> * spontaneous shutdown of the database running an insert query (twice)
> * constantly having ORA4030 (out of memory errors) when using Designer
> created insert-triggers
> * crashing oracle expert client when trying to view tuning recommendations
> * very time-consuming TAR handling, having to install patch on patch on
> patch and sending trace after trace after trace until you give up (I would
> prefer to send them script + data and get replies only when they solve the
> easily reproducible, common case, problem).
> * internal errors ORA00600 when using "order by" on indexed 1.5 million
> record tables
> * internal errors ORA00600 when creating indexes on large tables
> * does "end of communication channel" sound familiar?
> * prehistoric net client. Why not use dns + port by default and invent
those
> error prone tnsnames workarounds only for "probably better but much less
> used" alternative network systems? Why install thousands of files and
> millions of bytes as smallest version oracle net client and not include an
> odbc driver by default on the 98% most used OS in the world?
> * so what is revolutionary about having multiple long/blob columns in a
> single table?
> * queries crash when autoextending tablespaces start to autoextend even on
> lots of empty disk space
> * getting a "processor too fast" diagnose for (a previous version) oracle
> installer
> * query optimizer clearly less intelligent than MS-Access and MySQL on
some
> cases. Never found to be more intelligent.(Oracle workaround: analyze
tables
> compute statistics, forcing use of indexes by removing wrongly used ones,
> forcing change of query execution plan by using nested queries).
> * unable to first-time connect to oracle from a new process within 1
second
> (necessary for standard websever cgi implementations). As comparison:
> MS-Access and MySQL connect times are negligable.
> * etc.
>
> Then why, you may ask, am I still using Oracle?
> * my boss tells me to and our customers believe they will have a very
robust
> and stable database solution
> * after spending a huge amount of time on building and tuning the
database,
> I must admit, the lookup-queries are quite fast
> * Oracle being the largest and best known database software, I am probably
> too much of a newbee and after some more experience I hope to find the yet
> undiscovered but must-be-there goodies of the software
>
> Are you, as an Oracle user, dba or developer constantly solving such
> problems as I mentioned above or are you, not like me, able to spend your
> time on creating new queries, views and reports, making easy backups and
> only very occasional but successfull restores, easily importing and
> exporting data to all kinds of sources, integrating the software in all
> sorts of environments and doing more such productive work as the sales
> department has promised when the database was sold to you? Or is Oracle,
as
> I am starting to suspect, the Naked King in database land?
>
>
>
Received on Wed Apr 02 2003 - 04:02:51 CST