Is Oracle7 on Windows NT 4.0 a stable environment? Our production database crashes every month!
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 11:17:00 GMT
Message-ID: <35B9BF1B.6D3F_at_sympatico.ca>
Our production database running under Oracle 7.3.3.5.2 on a Windows NT 4.0 server almost crashes every month. When it crashes, Oracle doesn't generate any error messages in the alertSID.log file so when we call on Oracle technical support to report the problem it is not easy for them to track the problem and provide a solution.
Last June 14, 1998, we had a DrWatson error on the server that brought down our production database. The error was an Oracle73.exe access violation. No error messages were generated by Oracle in the alertSID.log file. A core dump was generated in the SIDcore.log. And these errors don't have a specific pattern. The problem cannot be easily reproduced. We logged a TAR to Oracle technical support. They advised us to set the sqlnet.expire_time on the server to 0. That did not fix the problem. Later, we found out that the problem is in the Performance Utility for Oracle.
Then on July 20, 1998, we has another DrWatson error on the server that
brought down again out production database. The error was an
Oracle73.exe access violation. No error messages were generated by
Oracle in the alertSID.log file. A core dump was generated in the
SIDcore.log. We cannot reproduce the problem. By just looking at the
core dumps, we cannot say what really happened. I phoned Oracle
technical support and they said that it was a problem with the client
because of abnormal termination of the application running on the client
workstation. They said that our server is fine! :-(
We requested them to escalate the problem because users can abort or
disconnect client connections any time. In the real world, anything can
happen. I'm currently waiting for Oracle customer support for answers
with regards to this problem.
I've worked with Oracle7 on Unix platforms and I never had experience an
Oracle database shutting down with any obvious reasons. If users
abnormally terminate their server connections, Oracle should handle it
gracefully and generate an error message in the alertSID.log file. We
currently have one instance running on the server. Our hardware
configuration can handle more than one instance. We plan on putting more
instances for other applications on the same server. Will this be a good
idea? Should we look at putting other instances on other servers? Or
shall we look at Unix servers?
Thanks.
Andy Marcelo
Oracle DBA Consultant
Received on Sat Jul 25 1998 - 13:17:00 CEST