Developing an Oracle App - Does the Server OS matter

From: Michael Smith <msmith_at_kepner-tregoe.com>
Date: 1999/01/26
Message-ID: <01be4935$5df9d120$3f177184_at_msmith>#1/1


We are having a company develop an enterprise application for us that will use Oracle8 as the back-end database. There's been some question as to what server/os they should use for their development. Here are the stats:

They had originally spec'd a $40K+ Dual-CPU DecAlpha with NT as the server, but we are questioning whether that is overkill for the development team.

Our recommendation, for a development-only box, would be a Intel-Pentium2 (or 3) 400Mhz box with 256MB+ RAM and around 10G HD (preferably one scaleable to 2 CPU's).

The price difference is tremendous, but in my opinion the affect on development should be nil, however their opinion is that they need the bigger server for testing performance. However, with only a few users doing testing what difference will it make. Besides, we have already decided to use an outside testing service for the load testing.

So, here's my question:
Does the back-end server OS/Hardware matter, given that it's always running Oracle8, when it comes to development. My feeling is that if I'm developing an app to run against an Oracle8 database, then it shouldn't matter whether the back-end DB is on an Intel/NT, DecAlpha/NT, Linux, or Sun box, as long as my client computer can connect to it. Does this make sense, or am I way off base in my assumptions?

Thanks,

Mike Smith
Sr. Analayst Received on Tue Jan 26 1999 - 00:00:00 CET

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