Re: Oracle7

In article <CDxFCq.At3_at_news.Hawaii.Edu> ktsuji_at_uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Kevin Tsuji) writes:
>
>
>Hey, anyone here doing development with Oracle7? We're looking for a Client/
>Server Relational DB system and given the fact that all I really have is
>propaganda material from this very, very marketing-intensive corporation --
>
>I need to know what sets Oracle apart from other products such as Sybase,
>Informix, IA, etc... I've heard from colleagues, that Oracle is slow and that
>the company tends to release software without enough testing. Also, that the
>company is relentless in pushing its clients to purchase the latest version
>of its software.
>
>Can someone out there who have evaluated Oracle7 and other products please
>comment. Any good recent articles regarding this topic matter?
>

Since you posted to the Mac group you should know that Oracle7 is only available for the Workgroup Server 95 (a specially configured Quadra 950 running A/UX). At least this was the situation at Database World in June. The Oracle rep there told me that it did not depend on the special hardware in the WS 95 and Oracle7 should work on all 68040 machines. However the decision to port to System 7 and market it more widely had not been made at that time. If you are only using Macs as clients, this need not concern you. The new versions of the client tools for Mac will work with a non Mac Oracle7 server.

Perhaps someone from Oracle can comment. Will there be an Oracle7 for Maintosh system 7? What machines will it run on?

No hard data for your other questions, just some impressions...

I have been an Oracle for Mac user for over two years. In general I am a satisfied customer. Yes, Oracle markets agressively, that's why they are #1. I feel that staying reasonably current is important in order to get the benefit of new features and the best support. To say the software supplier wants you to upgrade is not really a criticism. All software companies do. Of course, you don't want to be the first on your block to upgrade and Oracle was criticized for releasing version 6 too soon. My impression is that they were much more careful this time and the Oracel7 release is going more smoothly.

Some people still believe that all relational databases are slow. These people either 1) have not paid attention for ten years or so or 2) are paying so close attention that they believe the hype being generated by the object-oriented DBMS folks. Oracle is not any slower than the other relational players. They all periodically claim to pass each other in the performance bencmarks. Unless you are the type who does a lot of database tuning, the performance differences will probably be minor.

Comparisons such as you requested are regularly posted to comp.databases.oracle Check it out. I am cross-posting.

Good luck.

Steve

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Steven L. Wertheim, Ph.D.                      Internet: stevew_at_mit.edu
P.O. Box 390915                               Voice-net: (617) 547-4730

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