Re: So.....
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:05:58 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <98d1d797-a2e5-4ffa-80c1-571ed89e5610_at_u20g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>
On Jan 19, 7:50 am, John Hurley <hurleyjo..._at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> Peter:
>
> # So MS/SQL for AIX is available? Interesting, I didn't notice...
>
> You got me laughing here!
>
> A few years back we moved all of our oracle workload over to linux
> ( now on OL 5.7 ) and so far maintenance on x86 64 has been good.
>
> Many years back hpux used to be solid from oracle and solaris of
> course. Never ran on any aix systems ... but hpux started getting
> kind of funky a long ways back now. I guess it does get caught up
> periodically but sometimes one had to fight thru some weird
> installation and maintenance issues.
>
> Sounds like nuno is running into the same kind of questionable qa on
> aix that hpux hit a long time back?
>
> For many of us it looks like linux and/or solaris is the path with the
> least amount of problems keeping systems updated ... for now.
>
> Back prior to us moving over to linux we were also looking at solaris
> x86 but you just could not count on timely maintenance on that
> platform. I am guessing that this situation is now getting fixed but
> who knows really?
Oracle will support what it owns first (Linux, Solaris) then worry about the others (it would appear). As an internal business decision it's probably a sound move but on the customer support front it's a far cry from the old days when Oracle was simply a database vendor dependent upon others to supply the operating systems on which it would run. Oracle, in those days, wisely selected a platform as a primary destination for releases [for years it was Solaris, it switched to HP then swung back to Solaris, all this before Oracle started the current scheme of operating system 'support'] yet all others received proper attention after the initial release was completed. Yes, these agreements of days gone by involved direct support from the chosen vendors (hardware, software from the 'chosen one') but it didn't really interefere with providing support and releases for other operating systems, including OS/2, MVS, AS400 and smaller UNIX vendors (like MIPS -- remember them?), it just took a little longer to see the new release. It seems Oracle has chosen to now stay in its own back yard, so to speak -- a back yard composed of SPARC Solaris and a variant of Red Hat Linux -- at the expsnse of the other operating system vendors. Support for Solaris x86 is gone because, basically, Linux in all of its various 'flavors' has become the de facto standard UNIX-like O/S for that platform. Itanium support is gone (possibly because of poor cooperation from HP snce it lost its 'favored' status or because Oracle tires of supporting proprietary x86-type chipsets); Windows is such a vast collection of working and barely working offerings from XP through Windows 7 (which is nothing new for Microsoft as Windows98 and their failed UNIX offering named Xenix [which SCO bought not too long before it felll] will attest). Keep in mind it's hard to hit a moving target and HP, Microsoft and IBM all have been guilty of modifying the operating system to fix bugs and unwanted features introduced by other fixes and new releases intent on 'keeping up with the Joneses'. I have a feeling there is more to this issue than what we see on the surface yet that doesn't help the situation of dwindling support for previously supported vendors or the termination of support for some vendors/platforms altogether. It's expensive to shift a data center from Itanium servers to other commodity x86 machines, or to abandon a platform simply because Oracle chooses to no longer support it. Oracle should realize this and return to the 'days of yore' when it truly was a multi-platform RDBMS with a single code base and allowed shops of any size to use an enterprise-class database. As ti currently stands only the 'privileged few' get the updates; trying to force your customer base to abandon current systems so you can make even more money will eventually bite you in the ass and drive customers to the competition. Unless you've bought up all of the competition and subverted the free enterprise system.
My two cents.
David Fitzjarrell Received on Thu Jan 19 2012 - 11:05:58 CST