RE: SUMMARY: Thanks everyone - tru64

Lisa,  

You're a sweetheart -- you do very well what sofew of us do at all: post a "post mortem" to the list.  

Thanks!  

• Ross

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 4:16 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Kevin, sure I will. I just didn't want to muck up the list.

Here's what I found. If anyone has any comments to add, please do.

My question was about the utilities across different flavors of Unix and if they mean the same thing. vmstat, iostat are the same, however the switches may be a bit different. sar is system V only. truss you must purchase a license for. top is freeware. There is a utility called 'collect' that does something similar to top.

The response regarding tru64 has been overwhelmingly positive. Some of the positive comments I received:

1. C compiler (Kernighan and Richie) is not ANSI compliant and may affect any 3rd party apps.
2. Compaq hardware used to be lagging in Oracle (Apps) patch releases. Not anymore.
3. The journaling filesystem makes mistakes like unplugging the wrong cord
   (oops!) a simple fix instead of hours of downtime.
   
4. Security - Since tru64 is not 'mainstream', e.g. marketed everywhere extremely popular, intimate knowledge for hacking the os is not widely known. So obscurity works in your favor.
5. Clustering technology is mature, solid and proven.
6. tru64 is indeed a first tier platform for Oracle.
7. Compaq's support is rated as 'very helpful'.
8. tru64 has the ability to quickly clone a filesystem.
9. OPS can reside on a filesystem on tru64.
10. Benchmarking Solaris E10K/64CPU against Compaq GS-160/16CPU favored the Compaq! WOW
11. For 9i, Oracle licensed also the TruCluster technology from Compaq. Oracle RAC (Real Application Cluster, new names for OPS) for 9i will only initially be available on tru64, truly first tier.

Caveats/ Other comments:

1. Sun, relying on their own proprietary hardware, may be hurting themselves in the long run.
2. Sun is ex-pen-sive! Compaq wins in this comparison.
3. The future of Sun and Compaq seems a bit shaky right now, but they should pull through in the long run.
4. There's a bug in tru64 that doesn't allow one listener to service databases with different versions. Workaround is multiple listeners (no big deal)
5. Oracle does develop on Sun hardware. Calling OWWS for a Solaris system may net an answer quicker than running tru64.
6. Avoid the ultra sparc-2 chips from Sun. They have a problem with bad caches causing random reboots. I saw this at a previous employer.
7. If it's possible, consider IBM/AIX. IBM's sales force is highly trained in administration so you can talk real system architecture with them (not that I'm an admin or architect, I am neither). IBM's support is also top notch.

Special thanks to the following people for their responses:

Scott Shafer
Ron Morton
Lee Robertson
Jerry Hess
Michael Hand
Murali Vallath
Joe Hatchel
Mike Kurt
Ray Stell
Darren Browett
Stephen Andert
Stefan Moeding
And, the one and only clown.... Ross Mohan

Like I said, I'm overwhelmed at how helpful everyone is.

        -----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 12:02 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

        Lisa:   

How about contributing a summary of the feedback?   

Kevin

        -----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 11:37 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

        I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded to me when I asked
for info on tru64 Unix. I received much more info and feedback than I ever expected!

        This list is extremely helpful and I am very appreciative of how willing
people are to answer questions. I just hope I contribute enough to make up for how much everyone here has helped me.

        HELP!         Have a great day, all.

        Lisa Koivu
Oracle Database Administrator
954-935-4117

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