Re: Is Oracle Simply a Pig - The Worst I've See

kramer_at_ash.sps.mot.com (Jim Kramer) writes:

>Yes! Oracle is a GIANT SQUEELER! However, I'm pretty sure that
>all relational databases are. Remember you're dealing with something
>that spends all of it's time talking to the disk! This is why DB
>tuning is SOOOOO IMPORTANT. The other thing you can do is buy really
>fast disk drives (fast & wide SCSI, etc). You really do have to select
>the right computer/peripherals for the job. This ain't no DISKO, ya know!

You have the right fact but the wrong conclusion. That RDBMSes spend so much time talking to the disk is why DBMS system design is so important. I know this is true regarding DBs -- you can get (relatively) marginal performance improvements through tuning, but major improvements through good design. Sure, hardware is important, but the question is really, given a certain set of required performance goals, what hardware does it take to support Oracle and what does it take to support some other RDBMS? The allegation is that running Oracle will be more expensive.

Oracle has a rep. for being slower based on its design: it runs on everything from mainframes down and its model (e.g., tablespaces) reflects that it isn't optimized for any OS. Also, it has more features and options than any other RDBMS I've seen (I can't speak about DB2, for instance), which makes it a heavier system.

                        Seth Received on Tue Nov 30 1993 - 09:39:29 CET