Re: 10g ASM Pros and Cons

Comments in-line.

Laurenz Albe wrote:

> It is only fair that you write something in favor of Oracle as my comment
> certainly has been a little bitchy.

You should listen to me lecture on Oracle. Better yet Oracle's marketing people shouldn't. I openly criticize when I see things I don't like.

> Yet I cannot refrain from a few comments:
>
> ad 4: You must have made a typo. How can an Oracle product be vendor
> neutral? Is Oracle not a vendor?
> And I am not sure whether 'operating system neutral' is a good
> thing when it comes to storage management.

Certainly Oracle is a product vendor. My reference was to operating system neutrality. Meaning ASM works the same with multiple operating systems so that if one embraces the technology they can use it with any operating system they have in-house that supports Oracle (even Apple's OS X).

> Since you can manage data that are stored in ASM only with Oracle tools,
> using ASM means that your storage system depends on Oracle.

I agree. But then I can only manage what is in Oracle datafiles using Oracle tools too. Once a commitment is made to Oracle, or any other database vendor, there is a lock-in that just goes with the territory. You can't implement SQL Server without Windows. You can't implement Sybase or Informix or DB2 without their tools either. I don't see this as any different.

> Of course you are right that you always depend on whomever has written
> the software you use (although there is a lot to say about open source
> software at this point, but that is not what I'm aiming at).

There was. Now that Oracle owns SleepyCat and other members of the family ... just as RedHat and Novell essentially own Linux (for purposes of corporate implementations) it is easy to see one of the realities of Open Source: That being that corporations may implement them ... but they want 7x24 from a financially solvent organization as their security blanket.

> The point is that if much of your computing infrastructure depends on
> a single vendor, you give that vendor good leverage on your company.

No denying that and while I am not old enough to remember I suspect this same argument was made at one time about telephone service and the supply of electricity. I, for example, am at the mercy of Qwest and Puget Sound Electric. I can not go elsewhere no matter how shabbily I am treated.

> You have no choice, and that puts you in a very bad position when you
> want to negotiate your next contract.

Yes and no. It places you in a situation where the vendor assumes you have less leverage but they know that you can, in fact, decide to scrap their product and move to a competitor. Oracle will always fear SQL Server. Microsoft will always fear UNIX. The list goes on. Negotiating skills will always have value.

> I want to clarify at this point that I have no reason to believe that
> ASM is bad software. Except from a few experiments I have not worked with
> it yet.
>
> Yours,
> Laurenz Albe

My experience with ASM is that the first implementation anyone does, perhaps the first two, should be done with the intent of scrapping them. First experiences with ASM are like first experiences dating. They are for learning what you shouldn't do ever again.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)