Re: Oracle 7 small platform?

Andrew McAllister (mcallister_at_neptune.grad.missouri.edu) wrote:
: In article <34o2pl$bmu_at_bantu.Provo.Novell.COM>
: darrend_at_tahiti.USG.Sandy.Novell.COM (Darren R. Davis) writes:
: >|> My company is currently looking into implementing an Oracle 7
: >|> Client/Server application. We are developing the application using
: >|> Oracle's Netware NLM and Oracle Tools. (Netware v3.12 on a Compaq
: >|> SystemPro 486DX/50 with 128 MB memory and 4 GB SCSI-2 drives)
: >|>
: snip
 

: >Maybe this sounds like a sales pitch, but I would use Oracle 7 on
: >UnixWare. Or better yet, OracleWare which is a bundled package.
: >I am not certain if the ad is out yet, but we set a new benchmark
: >standard with Compaq, UnixWare, and Oracle. Definately check into it.
 

: >Darren R. Davis
: >UnixWare Developer Support Engineer
: >Novell Developer Support
 

: >Any opinions expressed are my own, and may not represent those of Novell's.

: I would suggest NOT choosing Oracle 7 on Unixware or Oracleware as Darren
: suggests. Wait for at least several .x versions before buying Oracleware
: (current version of Oracleware is 1.0).
 

: Our experience with Oracleware has been this...
: 1:Purchase price $12,000 (25 user copy at major educational discount).
 

: 2:Horrible support. Took a week just to get any tech support, and .... Despite
: two and a half weeks of dealing with tech support, we cannont communicate with
: Oracle 7 via Version 2 SQL*NET. (Now they want us to pay $3000 a year for this
: same support, yea right. )

I have no association with Novell.
Although Novell certainly doesn't need me to stand up for them, I write this because I am satified with their support. Incidentally, I do not have Oracle installed either. I do have Netware installed on 29 LANs that I manage. I also have UNIXWARE 1.1 installed on one machine and I am currently writing a proposal to have it installed as the communications co-server os for all 29 sites (all over Ontario). Without reservation, I most highly recommend Novell products. I base this on the superb technical support my staff and I have received on _every_ occassion we have had to call them. There have been occassions when Novell was unable to supply me with the answer I wanted. Upon reflection, the reason Novell could not give me the answer I wanted, was based upon the _change_ that occured in my requirements and expectations of product performance between the time I purchased the product and the time the new requirement came about. However, that is something that I must deal with. Again, I repeat, on every occassion I or my staff have contacted Novell for support, we have found that support to be professional, accurate and extreemly helpful. As a simple example of what I understand Novell corporate philosophy to be, I would refer readers to the recent post from Novell to initiate a dialogue regarding PTFs. I have never heard of a large corporation actually asking users in a public forum to assist with the formulation of policy. I was very pleased to see this. It again reassures me of a consistancy in coroporate philosophy about things like end user support and how do we (Novell) respond to our clients needs. (Boy, can I ramble on or what?)

: 3:Documentation is horrible, with the most significant books "online". Online
: is a dubious term because the OracleBook viewer is completely counter-
: intuative and very different from every other form of on line doc that I have
: seen, including the online docs for Unixware.

I am not a great admirer of Online manuals. If the Manuals for Oracleware are similarly set up as in the UW 1.1 FINGERTIP librarian format, then again, because of my personal preferences, I'm somewhat more comfortable with a paper book perched in my lap. But, hey, that's the way -=[ I ]=- do things. _My_ preference, not necessarily the majority of UW, or Oracleware users.

: As you can probably tell, I'm not to happy with Oracle right now.
: I would welcome any chance to eat the words above if some knowledgable Oracle
: person would like to assist us with our SQL*NET problem.

Please forgive me, I am not trying to flame you, but I didn't see too much in your post about Oracle only about your apparent dissatisfaction with Novell. I respect your right to your opinions, but the gist of them would make me disagree with them.

: Andrew McAllister -- Programmer Analyst II
: Office of Reserach, University of Missouri-Columbia
: The rantings above are my own opinion and NOT those of my employer.

Eric Silver
Yet another satified Novell customer. Received on Sun Sep 11 1994 - 06:31:28 CEST