RDBMS-based Intranet groupware products vs Notes : RDBMS vs proprietary doc. storage

I am currently evaluating Intranet groupware products, competitors to Lotus Notes, for a 2000 user project.

Such products, for example recently launched Oracle Interoffice or OpenText Livelink Intranet, are usually based on a RDBMS such as Oracle7. Document files (Word etc.) are stored in BLOB long rows of the relational DBMS. Such an architecture seems to require a powerful (and expensive) server : for example, at least a bi-processor Sun Ultra 2, 256 Mo RAM for about 200 concurrent users.
OpenText France recommands to have the HTTPd running on one server and the RDBMS on another more powerful one.
Implementing replication like for Notes would reduce a major benefit of Intranet architectures : the capacity for a single server to serve (well) several sites.

so, RDBMS vs proprietary (such as Notes) document storage ?

Has anyone experience of RDBMS Intranet products (InterOffice, Livelink etc.) handling hundreds of concurrent users efficiently on a single server ? Are RDBMS such as Oracle 7 Universal Server mature enough for managing thousands of Word, Excel etc. files ? What hardware is required for the HTTPd and RDBMS compared to Lotus Notes 4 ?

Please answer by e-mail too.

Jean-Philippe JAVEL
Consultant
Valoris Groupe - Paris, France
Tel : (33.1) 41.90.31.11 Received on Mon Jul 01 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST