Re: Interesting info about Oracle

I have to echo Burton's experience with Oracle. At one point I worked for a small start up. We used Oracle in our application and we were encountering a serious bug. (crashed the server randomly) If we did not fix the defect then we were out of business. I worked with Oracle support round the clock and around the world. They were nothing if not professional and helpful. It was a complex problem but we were able to find that it was in the RDBMS code. Also they went to great lengths to assist in narrowing the problem down so they could reproduce it. They even loaded our system at their support center and were finally able to reproduce the problem. 4 hours later I had a patch. That is service.

Same type of problem with MS. They went to great lengths to explain to me that it was clearly in our code. I was able to reproduce the problem in MS only applications. (word and excel) At that point they said it might be fixed in the next release. (no bug number, no idea when it would be fixed) We switched to another word processing package that didn't leak memory.

Jim

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"Burton Peltier" <burttemp1REMOVE_THIS_at_bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:E4wJa.42240$T37.39167_at_fe05.atl2.webusenet.com...


> I HAVE contacted Oracle support MANY times in the past 12 years. BTW ... I

> know this number of years doesn't make me (or anyone) an expert on

anything


> about Oracle.

>

> If you say you have a down production system , you get un-believe-able

> support, in my opinion.

>

> If you say you have a problem with a bug, the response has been

reasonable,


> in my opinion.

>

> You say you have a tuning problem, they rightly tell you to contact Oracle

> Consultants (at an extra cost) because you won't spend the time to tune

your


> system and want someone to do it for you.

>

> One recent experience... I logged an iTAR saying I had a down production

> system and had lost all copies of all REDO logs ... hoping someone could

> pull off a miracle and help me. Of course, they just talked me thru doing

a


> point in time recovery applying all the available archived logs and we

only


> lost about an hour of work.

>

> Note: Please no one lecture me about REDO mirroring... back then I had 4

> groups with 2 members each and each member was on a Raid simple mirrored

> disk separate from the other group member. We had a strange UPS problem

that


> cause the "lights" to flicker about 20 times in 10 seconds. Burnt 5 out of

> 12 disks in a RAID array (4 for 2 simple mirrors). Since then, I have

moved


> the Oracle multi-plex 2nd member to a separate RAID array in the unlikely

> (but obviously possible) condition of losing all mirrored multi-plexed

REDO


> logs. I am considering adding a 3rd member on a new RAID array we just

> added.

>

> Hmmm... I have no idea, but I wonder how does that free software handle a

> situation like this ?

>

> Also, isn't Oracle license exactly the way you describe it TODAY. I think

> anyone is free to develop/evaluate any Oracle software for free - so, no

up


> front license cost.

>

> You have to pay for support/license when you want to deploy your

application


> using Oracle software ... I call this support costs.  And , you pay for

> knowledge when you buy a license because with the license, Oracle support

> DOES help.

>

> -- 

>

> "Keith" <nospam_at_nospam.com> wrote in message

> news:vfd24qpna8pk1f_at_news.supernews.com...

> >    I am not a sales-person for PGSql. I have been using Oracle for about

> > 10 years - since Oracle7. Today it is too costly and dangerous to deal

> > with Oracle. I am just tired of all the lemmings going out and buying

> > Oracle and destroying competition and creating a situation that leads to

> > another Microsoft-like monopoly. Prices go sky-high, quality goes down

> > (call support and you will know what I mean) and the company that is

> > left, rides our collective a*ses and dictates what we can do.

> >

> > Paying for software licenses will go the way of button-down shoes.  Pay

> > for integration, support and knowledge but don't blow money on

> > seat-licensing.

> >

> > Burton Peltier wrote:

> > > Sounds like you forgot to ask for your change in that deal ... who in

> their

> > > right mind pays $40,000 per cpu ?  Not us and nobody I have ever

talked


> to.

> > >

> > > One day Oracle (for databases) and Microsoft (uhhh.. too damn much)

will


> > > fall from their current market dominance and hopefully (but not

> necessarily)

> > > be replaced by better products.

> > >

> > > But, free (initial cost only) software will not necessarily be the

> winner...

> > > just because the initial cost is free. They will need to make a better

> > > product or have better "sales" people .

> > >

> > > So far your sales pitch isn't going too far for me either.

> > >

> >

>

>

>