Re: ORACLE RAC CRASHES ORBITZ

"Darin McBride" <dmcbride_at_naboo.to.org.no.spam.for.me> wrote in message news:ZcCVa.557958$3C2.14299559_at_news3.calgary.shaw.ca...
> Is it marketing hyberbole when Sun advertises 99.999% uptime? Generally,
I
> take anything that is subjective to be hyperbole ("Coffee Crisp is a nice,
> light snack" - whether it is nice, light, or a snack [vs breakfast] is all
> pretty subjective). Anything that is objectively verifiable, I, and I
> suspect many others, would take much more literally.
>
> If Sun only manages 99.99% uptime, don't you think that their competitors
> would call them on it? Someone may make a decision, after reading spec
> sheets, to go with a certain vendor based on those spec sheets, and a
> competitor proving the spec sheets were wrong would likely also be
factored
> in somewhere. Oracle claimed 100% uptime. Yes, you and I know that's
> basically impossible. But that's the claim. And it's not a subjective
> one.

When and where did Oracle claim 100% uptime? Unbreakable does not mean 'No downtime'. At least not objectively. Subjectively you might argue it. The thrust of the marketing campaign was around security and reliability. Oracle never claimed that there wouldn't be downtime at all. At least not that I have seen.

> In short: don't make marketing claims that you can't back up. That's not
> hyperbole. That's lying.

That is why you don't make specific marketing claims but talk in general terms about the strengths of your product as compared to competition, or about why your latest product is sexier than a very sexy thing. The only exception that I can think of to this is the benchmark based ads which say achieved score X on hardware Y, the competitor scored X- a large number. NB Do not extrapolate from this to your hardware or your application its just pointless.

-- 
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
Audit Commission UK