Re: Unix to Windows DBA translation

Originally posted by Chuck
> rs_arwar_at_hotmail.com (Rauf Sarwar) wrote in
> news:92eeeff0.0307012111.5f479057_at_posting.google.com:"]news:92e-
> eeff0.0307012111.5f479057_at_posting.google.com:[/url]
>
> > Chuck wrote in message
> > news:news:...
> >>
> >> on unix. I have a few databases on Windows only because of a
> third
> >> party product that dictates both the platform and
> database.
> >
> > If your third party product is making Oracle platform dependent
> on
> > Windows only... then I would say that it is a crappy product and
> you
> > should look for a substitute.
>
> I still scratch my head as to why the vendor is dictating the o/s
> platform for the database server. The application itself runs on a
> separate server (also win2k) and connects to the database over
> OracleNet.
> Why they should care what platform the database runs on is
> beyond me. In
> fact, I know that if I quietly moved the database to one of our unix
> servers and changed the tnsnames.ora file on the app server, the app
> would never miss a beat and they'd never even know it happened.
>
> The only time they do anything on the database server is when they
> upgrade the app they sometimes run DDL from there. They could just as
> easily run it from the app server if they aren't comfortable
> working in
> unix.
>
> When we suggested letting us move it to unix a year ago, and relieving
> them of any database support, they said they'd do it but jacked up the
> maintenance cost by $100K US. Needless to say, we left it on Windows.
>

They probably have code in the database (utl_file or external function calls etc) that is dependent on Windows being the underlying OS. You mentioned that they sometime run DDL's from the database server, which leads me to believe their scripts are also DOS specific. If this vendor is serious about using Oracle backend, then they would keep their database code OS independent or else move their code to Sql server.

$100K in maint cost :->) .... I think they want you to pay to change the crappy code they have written in the first place. It could also be that they don't have someone inhouse with Unix expertise for support calls so they want you to pay so they can hire a Unix admin.

Regards
/Rauf Sarwar

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