Re: Advantages of Oracle on Windows over Unix

Niall Litchfield wrote:

> I'm not sure that a straight comparison between Windows and proprietory
> Unix is especially relevant, unless perhaps we are talking 64bit Windows
> and some of the very new hardware, they tend to be aimed at different
> markets. Probably the only thing I'd say there is that it looks like
> vendor Unix is on it's way out - no-one is likely to be saying that
> about windows right now.

The vendors may not be but I suspect you are correct with the possible exception of IBM retaining AIX.

> A comparison between Linux and Windows is not, however, unreasonable
> since it 'tends' to be run on the same sort of hardware and by the same
> sort of organisations. I do think that Windows has some considerable
> advantages for many organisations in this space.
>
> First, you are more likely to be able to find, recruit and retain
> experienced sysadmins on the windows platform than the Linux one. This
> is changing,

I'll mildly disagree. Last week I had a long telephone conversation with the person at Microsoft who manages their Oracle relationship and he was bemoaning the disrespect Windows receives in the serious data center.

While we agreed to disagree on many points one where we did agree was that the quality of UNIX System Admins, their technical expertise, vastly outranks that of Windows System Admins. So while Windows System Admins may be easier to recruit ... the number that know what MTU is, for example, will be far different.

The fact that they are easier to find ... doesn't mean they are equally competent. It may well be that benchmarks such as those run by HP showing Windows is comparable to Linux are valid given that HP likely has some very senior System Admins who set up the test system. That is not, however, going to be the experience at the vast majority of firms.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org