Re: Exporting and Importing SQL Statement Cache

From: Palooka <nobody_at_nowhere.com>
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:11:29 +0000
Message-ID: <Fa_Yk.22811$qm1.16796@newsfe29.ams2>


joel garry wrote:
> On Nov 28, 7:26 am, Stevo <steven.robb..._at_gmail.com> wrote:

>> On 28 Nov, 14:20, "Matthias Hoys" <a..._at_spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>> I am always curious at to why this would be the case.  Were these
>>>> buyers who bought the software back in 1998 without a support
>>>> contract?  Other than that, why wouldn't someone do it when they can
>>>> do it for free?
>>>> The argument "It works, why mess with it?" I have heard in the past I
>>>> think is just lame.  The first time someone hits a problem without
>>>> support (assuming they have a support contract), someone will lose a
>>>> job, which is just wrong.
>>> It all depends. Sometimes you can do more damage by upgrading than by
>>> leaving it alone. I recently installed patch set 10.2.0.4 (upgrade from
>>> 10.2.0.3) and some user queries just crashed with ora-600 errors ! I had to
>>> install 3 additional one-off patches and set a hidden ora parameter before
>>> everything was "stable" again. And Oracle Locator was broken after the
>>> upgrade ... Luckily, this was only a development environment. Still, I
>>> didn't expect that many problems after the installation of the third patch
>>> set for the second release of a software product ...
>>> Matthias
>> The support contract was apparently packaged by the vendor that
>> supplied the web based content management system. The application is
>> now out of support therefore voiding any chances I have of gaining
>> assistance from the vendor. This all happened before I was hired so
>> I'm just trying to clean up the mess.
>>
>> I'm assuming the task of upgrading from 8 to 9 is not to be taken
>> lightly and I've been told there is a plan to migrate to a new content
>> management system so for now I'd rather not make any large changes.
>>
>>> Other than that, why wouldn't someone do it when they can
>>> do it for free?
>> Steve, are you referring to the upgrade of oracle from 8 to 9 being
>> for free? I didn't realise that.

>
> If you have support, upgrades are free. If you haven't maintained
> continuous support, it isn't, you may have to pay a catch-up fee, and
> grandfathering in old support agreements can be iffy (as in, "no").
> There are more costs involved, depending on what needs to be done,
> which often depends how trick the developers thought they were being.
> Note that you can set version and some other things lower than the
> version is running with init.ora parameters, so upgrading to 9 can be
> relatively painless, if there turns out to be pain. A lot of pain
> comes from code assuming it is written for the rule-based optimizer,
> which Oracle has warned for years is going away. It's still kinda
> there in 10g, or at least you can sometimes catch rule hints in system
> sql. Some pain may come from client or third-party software, problem
> driver requirements and so on.
>
> Yes, many places are still on 7 and 8, and most of them for laughable
> reasons, like "I'm not going to pay support on a stable system," or
> "it costs too much to convert," or even "my hardware doesn't run
> it." (That last can come from 64-bit requirements on some hardware/OS/
> Oracle combinations).
>
> If you have a plan to replace it with some other system, that might be
> a reasonable rationalization. I must say, I've seen that be severely
> abused, with the other system getting put off until parts are no
> longer available for the original hardware, and it becomes a serious
> problem.
>
> I've also seen problems with vendors providing "support," keeping the
> money instead of giving it to Oracle. Then the customer has a big
> nasty surprise when the vendor goes away.
>
> You might get some idea of the issues with free XE if you want to try
> a limited amount of data. I think it is available for your platform,
> though I haven't looked. If not, find a PC and try it.
>

I think it depends on your definition of "free". There may be no additional oracle licence costs, but it can still cost the enterprise big dollars to plan, regression test and implement a version upgrade, which in and of itself offers little or nothing by way of new functionality, unless it is actually used.

Just saying...

Palooka Received on Mon Dec 01 2008 - 17:11:29 CST

Original text of this message