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From: leonard@lf-clark.prestel.co.uk (Leonard F. Clark)
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.server
Subject: Re: HELP!  Need ammo against Oracle on NT!!
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 18:10:01 GMT
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Message-ID: <3672ac88.30120300@news.prestel.co.uk>
References: <3666E650.9C4005F@isi.edu> <366816A4.B4A5ABA@scientech.com> <36682EB7.91D3805F@isi.edu>
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I can't point you to any papers that answer your concerns: I guess
Oracle is more concerned to say how much better than SQL Server Oracle
is on Nt than how much weaker it is than on bigger platforms.

I've been scanning the literature for a while now and, if it's there,
I've missed it.  I *have* implemented a couple of NT systems, though,
and can tell you a little of our experiences.

The most recent is Oracle 7.3.4 on a Compaq with 4 x PII (not sure
what speed - not massive).  The main table is 6.5 Gb, sized for 13 Gb;
the rest probably add another Gig or two.

Subjective response is that it does seem considerably slower than Unix
(I've used HPUK and AIX mainly).  Obviously, you could work around
this to some extent - including using parallel server - but the
problems aren't only raw speed.

What are my main concerns?

1. (As you imply) NT resilience.  It's probably better than you imply,
but still not as good as UNIX.  On a previous system (with NT 3.51) we
had a lot of problems with memory leakage and the system would hang at
least once a week.  We haven't had that with the current system (NT4)
but the system fluctuates greatly in performance - which appears often
as poor response from Oracle.  (We are running on Citrix Winframe so I
don't know how much the problem is native NT and how much Citrix.)
That brings me to the second problem.

2. Poorly thought out support infrastructure

Because NT is a PC-thing, it's usually supported by some PC/LAN team
rather than the system admin/ network boys.  I've found they simply do
not have the expertise to manage the kind of infrastructure Oracle
needs.  (For example, our Sys Adm - who is a very willing guy - was
bowled over by the idea of my automating shutdown/startups.  They were
already taking system backups using ArcServe and had no idea that this
was problematic for Oracle.  We are now scheduling our mini-batch from
Dr Solomon's Virus Checker!!!!)  I've also found that the level of NT
expertise is generally quite low: again, where I am currently is
really a Novell shop so they are still learning NT and surrounding
tools.

3. Poorly defined technical infrastructure.

The biggest beef is no simply equivalent to shell scripts.  Do you use
Rexx (ex-mainframers' answer), Perl (some ex-UNIXers' answer), C
(developers' answer), one of the scripting tools that are out there or
something like GNU tools for PC?  Any would do but getting a decision
oin a standard approach is nigh on impossible.  So I'm developing
tools in C (e.g. to clear down directories of files more than x days
old - a sinch using find on UNIX) and only a handful of people have
the expertise to support it.

4. Ill defined requirements/design - the killer for me.

My guess is that the vast majority of Oracle systems on NT are apps
that were originally designed for Access or some similar tool and they
have either grown beyond the capacity of the tool or there is a
realisation that more sophisticated security is required.  The
Access/VB front end is left in place and connection is made via ODBC.
Whatever the performance is like on NT Oracle, it's worse through
ODBC.  Then Access seems to make 5 queries of the database for every
one actual query.  It works differently and the code needs to be
differently designed.  (Our designers are struggling valiantly with
pass-through queries but they don't understand SQL and keep falling
back on the known Access methods.)  The ODBC is always Microsoft's or
Oracle's, which are pretty flakey at the best of times and provide a
weak link for the sake of saving a few hundred quid on a decent
flavour.

Don't get me wrong, like you I think it's horses for courses and NT
Oracle is probably a super solution for small data marts that are
accessed by a handful of people, maybe with something like Business
Objects on the box too.  But I hope you can pursuade your people not
to use it for more than a few Gbytes.

Len
>     I was asking for pointers to articles to print out and give THEM.  I've
>read the benchmarks that said given identical applications on a terabyte size
>DB, Oracle/UNIX was able to service roughly 3X as many connections as
>Oracle/NT, I know that NT doesn't scale well for enterprise, there is the
>sheer number of layers that NT apps must go through vs. the micro-kernel
>architecture of  UNIX, there is the remote administration problem, and given
>the fact that Oracle/NT doesn't have a raw partition, it is therefore is once
>again filtered through NT, thereby placeing more software between you and your
>data.  But these are observations, not printable articles, which is what I
>think will be most convincing.
>    For the record this is for a terabyte, multi-media DB.  I don't want butt
>heads, I just was looking for some pointers to articles.  If you don't want to
>help, please, please, don't respond.  I don't need the condescension.  Thanks
>to all those who gave helpful pointers.  It is greatly appreciated.
>