Integrating Oracle on Unix into Netware network

The company I'm working for is planning a near-future move to a database server (probably Oracle). We are currently running a Novell network (3.11 and 4.01). One of the options we've considered is getting a RISC-based database server (probably multi-processor). However, since the RISC version of Novell is some time away (next year?), we'd probably use Unix as the OS.

My question is: can we integrate the Unix server into our Novell network? Can Unix speak IPX/SPX (or even NetBios if necessary), or would we have to convert all our PC's (and Novell server) to TCP/IP? How much overhead is Oracle going to have running under Unix rather than Netware (in other words, how would the Oracle NLM on a 486/66 compare to the same machine running some Intel-based Unix with the Unix Oracle, provided there were adequate memory, hard disk, etc, etc.)?

One other related question: I understand that database servers such as Oracle and Sybase that migrated from minis to PCs do not have server-based cursors, so the cursor must be cached on the client or the query re-executed when scrolling through it. Is this true? How does this affect performance on a less-well-endowed client (386SX-25 w/ 4MB RAM, 120MB IDE HDD)? Would an environment such as Novell SQL or Gupta SQLBase that keeps cursors on the server be more likely to perform better and require fewer resources on the client (throw more hardware at a single server rather than hundreds of machines).

Thanks for your input!
Pete Kruckenberg
kruckenb_at_ee.utah.edu

[Follow ups will be posted to comp.databases] Received on Wed Jan 19 1994 - 04:31:45 CET