Re: Advantages of Oracle on Windows over Unix

From: joel garry <joel-garry_at_home.com>
Date: 18 Jan 2007 13:29:14 -0800
Message-ID: <1169155754.436489.165740@51g2000cwl.googlegroups.com>

bdbafh wrote:
> gazzag wrote:
> > DA Morgan wrote:
> > > While I agree with 95% of what you wrote.
> > >
> > > If that super Windows admin exists out there ... the one that can make
> > > Windows performance equivalent to that of *NIX ... he or she sure hasn't
> > > worked anywhere I've ever visited.
> > > --

I saw one large shop that had a couple of those. One got shifted over to the DBA team and is in my mental pantheon of Worst DBA's Ever. Don't forget, one way to make the performance equivalent is to make the *NIX worse...

> >
> > I think this is the problems with GUI's. They don't encourage people
> > to read (and understand!) documentation. Most Windows admins that I
> > have encountered belong to the
> > "point-and-click-until-it-does-what-you-want" school. This explains
> > why they find it so hard to document what they've done; ultimately,
> > they're not entirely sure.

> You've never heard of "printkey.exe"?
> (ducking, running and laughing)

> I had to document the 10g R1 db server install on a RHEL box with
> screenshots of the gui interface running on a Cygwin X Server on my Win
> XP laptop.

>
> Have fun with that one.

I spent a few hours once creating an email to show exactly what to put on what screens for some moderately complex process. Then I discovered the windows email administrators had decided that steganography is a virus vector, so would silently filter all pictures out of email. Including those in the Outlook Sent Items folder, which is backed up so religiously (well, sometimes silently not backed up because the file is locked if the user doesn't exit Outlook...). Sometimes you don't get what you pay for, I guess. Glad I get paid by the hour.

It was also news to some admin staff that work-related pictures they would send to everyone hadn't been making it, including some sig files and fairly important HR stuff. Amazing how some people won't complain about what they can't see.

But still, my favorite Oracle on Windows experience was watching a DBA blow a gasket because some helpdesk jockey bfh had decided that no one would be working after 5 and remotely brought down the DBA's peecee for an upgrade, while the DBA was using OEM to extend data files on the O8 DW db (which, for those who don't know, could potentially corrupt the db in those days). That would be the advantage Windows has of the ubiquity of PCAnywhere and suchlike.

> -bdbafh

>
>


> > I'm not against GUI's, incidentally, I just believe that one should

> > learn the command-line stuff first.  This means that you understand

> > what is going on beneath the bonnet ("hood", in America ;)) and you can
> > still do your job if, for some reason, the GUI is unavailable.

Totally agree with that.

-- 
@home.com is bogus.
http://www.usa.gov/gobiernousa/

Received on Thu Jan 18 2007 - 15:29:14 CST