Re: Oracle vs DB2 on heavy OLTP loads

On Mon, 16 May 2005 17:16:34 -0700, dbguy456 interested us by writing:

>
>> The RAC is optional, but a hell of an easy way to save money by not
> needing to go to big SMB boxes.
> C'm on, properly designed OLTP app in most cases can get 100M
> transactions/day (or 200000/minute assuming even distribution over
> 8-hour workday) on a single 4-CPU box; and 100M/day is a huuuuuge
> number, which is more than NYSE and NASDAQ transaction numbers
> combined.

You saying you achieve the above in DB2? So why worry about it.

Every published benchmark around Oracle and IBM show that they leapfrog each other. If you can do it with DB2, you know you can do it with Oracle under roughly the same horsepower. (And that's about all benchmarks prove.)

You sure don't need RAC for a single 4-CPU box. (Not even Enterprise Edition, unless you need Enterprise features if required by design.)

Just make sure you read Tom Kyte's "Effective Oracle by Design" so you understand the difference in design pattern.

>> The customer put it into service 24x7x265 under a MUCH higher load.
>Sadly I can not discuss that part as I left under NDA.
>As usual, just as it started to become interesting - it's all over :-(.

Talk to Oracle. Ask for references. This customer is a reference. Yes, they'll be selected but you do get a chance to talk.

Unless, of course, you don't trust your ears and eyes in a reference situation. Then again, asking on this list is just as likely to give biased info and it's even less trustworthy than a reference call in which you have the name of the company and the company's representative.

I can with significant confidence tell you that issues you will encounter are generally NOT Oracle issues. They will likely be issues of the selected OS and especially the IO subsystem and disk configuration.

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com