RE: Senware AutoDBA

Don ...

Yah, this was the one where to fix your performance problems all you need to do is keep buying hardware. I remember one question that was asked .... what happens if you dont have an unlimited hardware budget ? Gaja did have some interesting facial expressions that day during that particular presentation. I wish I had a camera with me at the time.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 11:43 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

That was truly a disaster of a session. I, and the small group I was with, left almost immediately. I was on the sundeck for the post-mortem though and even have a nice picture of Gaja discussing (emphasis on "cuss") it with Stan. I believe the presenter was the CTO, but I'm not sure.

I have been hounded constantly about AutoDBA by a sales rep from Insession Technology. After a cold call from her, long before the conference, I asked for some technical material on it and got only marketing material - even the supposed "technical white papers" were pure marketing blather. I did try to get a "trial download" off their web site. I "registered" only to find out that there was no trial download. Instead, I got another call from the same sales rep offering to come out and give a presentation to executive management - and perhaps, after that, to come out and install a trial version.

I have never seen AutoDBA nor used it, but I have formed a strong subjective opinion that it is most likely pure garbage. I apologize if anyone here is associated with this product and offended. Please don't take it personally - my admittedly highly subjective opinion is based largely on the tactics of marketing weasels. Here is the basis:

1. The presentation at IOUG-A Live! 2002 (The last straw - I already had a dislike for AutoDBA before that.)
2. The fact that they couldn't or wouldn't offer any substantial information about it - only marketing rhetoric.
3. The marketing is hyperbole full of exotic-sounding buzz-phrases meant to impress PHBs (e.g. "Utilizes advanced artificial intelligence, predictive analysis algorithms, and intelligent neural network technologies") - and it seems to be based mostly on the standard tuning myths (e.g. "As space is allocated in an Oracle database, the tablespaces become increasingly fragmented which hinders database performance. AutoDBA automatically repairs these fragmented tablespaces, improving database efficiency").
4. The tactic of wanting to "sell" it to upper management before offering a trial copy or even significant technical information about how it works and what it does.
5. The proverbial "Big One" - I now work closely with someone who was not long ago a manager at a company that markets AutoDBA and was the project manager on that company's initial "evaluation" of the product. They said that AutoDBA sent out a couple of their "experts" who spent three days trying to get it working - installing it, patching it, downloading stuff from all over the web, patching it again, hacking ... and it still barely worked. They begged off the project (and shortly after left the company) when told in no uncertain terms that their "evaluation" needed to be "very positive". Granted, that was over a year ago and the product may have improved since then, but as recently as a few months ago a "registration" for a "trial download" on the web lead only to a marketing call.

No thanks... I feel a bit queasy even now just thinking about it.

Don Granaman
[certifiable OraSaurus]

• Original Message ----- To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 2:24 PM

FWIW, someone from Senware presented a paper at IOUG 2002 titled 'Performance management from the ground up' (or somthing like that) which was a load of &*$% to say the least. Most of the audience (many on this list) walked out in disgust after the first 10 minutes.... (Does someone remember the 'green peas' story?) If their product is even twice as good as their rep, it would not be worth considering.

I am not blaming their desperate tactics however. Anything to sell a product in this economy :( Just came off a marketing call on the office phone for services I don't need!

John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jared.Still_at_radisys.com [mailto:Jared.Still_at_radisys.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 11:04 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: Re: Senware AutoDBA
>
>
> Interesting web site.
>
> They claim to eliminate chained rows by rebuilding the tables.
> I'd like to see how they intend to do that.
>
> They also claim that their product can detect corrupt indexes
> and rebuild them. How hard can it be to detect ORA-1578?
> This kind of thing is fairly rare, and hardly seems worth the
> resources to run DBMS_REPAIR or dbv to check for.
>
> Their MO is hardly new. IBM has had a team in place for years
> designed to make an end run around the purchasing mgr/DBA/whoever
> when their product wasn't selected. They go to upper mgt to
> try and convince them of the foolish mistake the product
> evaluators made.
>
> Not surprising that others follow their lead.
>
> Jared
>

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