Re: Oracle for NT problems

In article <4gd7l1$jvf_at_unix2.sysnet.net>, patton@ (Matthew Patton) wrote:
> Our office runs 2 Unix boxes and Oracle but one of our remote sites wishes to
> use the NT product. This NT box came with a RAID array which we really
> despise
> especially in light of the limitations of NT Oracle. If I am wrong about the
> following statements, please let me know and how to go about solving the
> problem.
>
> 1) NT oracle insists on installing all data structures, to include the NT
> binaries,
> indexes, dbms files, control files, the whole nine yards under X:\ORANT.
>
> 2) There is no way to facilitate 'mount points' under NT.
>
> While having the actual database data stored on the RAID box is quite
> acceptable,
> we forsee significant management and performance inefficiencies with the
> indexes
> and the archive logs hogging that same resource.
>
> Much experimentation with our Unix boxes has showed that for speed and admin
> ease, indexes should be on their own drive (or two if more space is needed),
> and
> log files should also be relegated to their own disk, the better to utilize
> the 'multi-
> tasking' of the scsi bus.
>
> Surely there are NT oracle users out there who have dealt with this problem?
> Netware shops also suffer from the same limitations I believe. Our inquiries
> to
> Oracle support have been less than useful. They seem amazed that one would
> want to distribute disk I/O across many separate drives. (huh?)
>
> We'd like nothing more than to tell our customer to stuff NT on the trash pile
> where
> it belongs but that will never happen. We'd also like to use the GUI based
> admin
> tools for both Unix and NT but especially in the case of the latter, they are
> apparently quite braindead. SqlDBA32.exe does seem to work but it has several
> annoying bugs.
>
> Your collective help/advise greatly appreciated.
>
I have several databases up under NT. While I have not tried to install the Oracle software itself in anything other than c:\orant, I have successfully split the data on several different disk drives in directories such as d:\oradata. The challenge is that you have to create a database other than the default on provided by the Oracle installation scripts (much like you had to do in many Unix systems when ORAINST had problems). Anyway, the basic procedure is:

1. Make a copy of the initxxxx.ora file and change all of the names, control file locations, etc. to match the new instance.
2. Use the instance manager to create a new instance with a SID that matches the names that you set up in step 1.
3. Start up the new instance processes (services), but do not try to start the actual instance itself.
4. Go to the DOS prompt and set the ORACLE_SID variable to match your new instance SID (i.e. set ORACLE_SID=test).
5. Run SQL*DBA and connect internal (you have to type connect internal/password, where password is the Oracle instance password that you specified when you created the new instance with instance manager).
6. You then have to manually issue the create database, create tablespace and create rollback segment commands to fully set up your instance. When you issue the create database and create tablespace commands, you can specify whatever disks, directory and file names that you want.

A it of a pain in the rear, but it has worked for me and I was especially interested in I/O performance when working with the smaller NT boxes. Hope this helps. Received on Tue Feb 20 1996 - 00:00:00 CET