Re: Platforms for Oracle

David Mason <vid_at_zooid.guild.org> writes:
>I'm not sure where to post this. It's sort of a general
>question, I'm looking for people's thoughts and experiences.
>
>Currently our organization is using a proprietary NCR
>minicomputer on which a large number of accounting-related
>COBOL programs are running. In the next year or two we will
>be switching over to a new system.
>

A colleague in Nebraska is also in this situation I believe. He is evaluating an Oracle solution and another database, I cannot remember which one; Progress sticks in mind.

[parts deleted showing Unix aim]
>
>Oracle recommended four hardware vendors for us to consider:
>the high end is Sequent and Pyramid at over $100,000, and
>the low end is Sun and HP, both at around $60,000.
>

In general accounting packages generate high select rates during data entry, and high update rates during commit and processing. In order to maintain an acceptable performance rate for your users you may need to go with a high-end Sun or HP system at that $60K figure.

>What I'm wondering is if there are less expensive, less
>proprietary (in my mind at least) systems (IE Intel '486
>architecture that we've had more experience with) that would
>run these accounting systems as well or better. Does anyone
>have any experience with running Oracle, particularly their
>accounting system, on a platform such as an EISA
>multiprocessor SCO system, Compaq Systempro, ALR, or
>whatever?

We have some experience on PC Unix and SunOS (low-end ELC Sun) with Oracle and Multi-user databases. Both are uni-processor models with substantial amounts of memory in use by Oracle and its toolsets.

Taking the 486 system:
  486 Micronics 486DX-50 mhz
  48 megabytes of memory
  2.5 gb of disk storage, 2gb of it for Oracle   24 port Equinox board with Wyse-50 terminals   WD8003E ethernet for printing

We get adequate performance for 12 interactive users doing high-select slow update activities. Slow periods include news processing <grin> and long-running reports which could be solved by tuning our application.

>
>Thanks for any (polite) suggestions.
>--
>vid_at_zooid.guild.org -->> ZOOiD Public Access Usenet 416 322-7876

-- 
Andrew Finkenstadt, Vista-Chrome, Inc., Homes & Land Publishing Corporation
GEnie Unix RoundTable Manager, andy_at_vistachrome.com, andy_at_genie.geis.com.
  Join GEnie, call 800-638-9636/301-251-6415.  Join Unix, CASE, and Desktop 
  Oracle RDBMS Database discussions, send mail to ora-request_at_vistachrome.com