Re: Oracle DB needs much CPU time?

Fu-Chiang (Rich) Tsui wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> I am new to the oracle database. I have some naive questions here.
>
> Before we purchase and install the Oracle Database, we would like
> to know whether it requires much CPU time or not.
>
> Currently we are using the Sun Sparc 10 machine with SunOS 4.1 and
> this machine also maintains about 200 mail accounts and one Web
> server. Thus, if we install the Oracle database on our machine, will
> this machine crash after starting oracle processes? This machine has
> 64MB RAM.
>
> In addition, do we need a database manager to maintain the oracle
> database? Is it easy to handle the database system by some
> programmer (with Mini-SQL experience) without much knowledge on oracle
> database.
>
> Any one could give me some comments? Thank you.
>
> Rich Tsui
> Center for Biomedical Informatics
> University of Pittsburgh

Rich,

	As far as Oracle taking up resources, I don't think it takes up
	any more than any other relational database.  However, 
	relational databases can be system hogs.  Because Oracle scales
	so well (throughput increases almost linearly with available
	processing power) it definitely has the ability to run your
	Sparc10 into the dirt, both from memory and from cpu standpoint.
	It also has the ability to be hardly noticed.  It all depends
	on how much memory you allocate to the SGA, how many users are
	concurrently using the database and how much actual work is
	being done.

	The only way other than simply testing it would be to get some
	good benchmark data for the type of transactions you want to
	perform (this should be available from oracle and/or sun) and
	use that to estimate.

	As far as needing a DBA, if it's a simple database then you
	can probably handle it OK just by reading the manuals and
	the newsgroup.  I would suggest some third-party manuals as
	they tend to be more informative than some of the Oracle
	manuals.  Sorry, no titles.

-- 
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Allen Kirby			AT&T ITS Production Services
akirby_at_att.com			Alpharetta, GA.