Choice of platform

Our customer is considering replacing their seventeen Dec Alpha 2000 servers with NT systems for "supportability" reasons. I have spoken with a few DBA friends, and most seem to agree that moving to NT may not be the best way to go, and that sticking with VMS, or moving to a *nix-based system might be more advisable. Unfortunately, I haven't spoken with them in enough detail to determine *why* one might be better than the other, or why NT might not be the best solution.

I am looking for any information regarding preferred operating systems for hosting a medium-sized Oracle database, and why one OS may be better than another. In particular, I'd like to hear about comparisons, or any particular problems or difficulties in the areas of Oracle/OS stability, migration issues, compatibility problems, etc.

Our Oracle client-server application runs on a total of about 5000 client PC systems at 17 different sites across the country. Each site contains a single database instance running Oracle 8.1.7 on a Dec Alpha 2000 running OpenVMS. At any one time, each site might have a maximum of 30 - 50 simultaneous users accessing their local database via TCP/IP using Sql Net (through our client/server application). Each site is also connected to all the others via a private TCP/IP WAN.

The database consists of approx. 150 tables, a small number of triggers and a couple database procedures. (Most functionality is implemented at the application form level. Very little is done at the database level.) The quantity of data varies from approx. 100,000 records in the largest table to 1 record in the smallest. The database is primarily transactional in nature, but some of the larger tables are also used for long-term storage of data. There is very little batch processing.

Any advice, warnings, and particularly, links to any online articles or papers which discuss OS comparisons as they apply to Oracle 8 would be VERY much appreciated. If you reply, a CC: to my e-mail oradba_at_nospam.answerdude.net (remove the "nospam") would also be sincerely appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Dodger Received on Thu Apr 03 2003 - 00:31:33 CEST