Peter,
Please allow me to disagree. I came from the USAF with a very deep love for
DEC hardware and software (VAX/VMS), only to be VERY disappointed by them when I
was presented with DEC Ultrix. Their straying into the Unix world was a real
nightmare. First off their sales folks over sold the capabilities of the
5000/240 workstation. A database server it was not. Ultrix was a failure right
out of the gate. That monster combination was a guarantee that I would get a
page every night that it was here and the server a re-boot. It finally took me
three years to get a Ultrix tech to admit that they had not implemented a
TCP_KEEP_ALIVE capability into Ultrix and that I would never see it. At that
time the only path was to upgrade to an Alpha with OSF-1 which was crashing on a
daily basis. Oracle back then recommended a cold backup of the database twice a
day. One of the soccer dads whose's daughter was on the same team as mine was a
DEC/Compaq employee. His recommendation was to stay away from OSF at all costs.
He was one of the lucky ones when Compaq sold off the CASE tools operation. Oh
how I would have loved moving back onto a VAX, but DEC was not interested in
that platform any more and HP's 9000 platform was not only cheaper to acquire
and support, but faster and more capable as well. We benchmarked a DEC Ultrix
box specifically tailored by DEC to database work against an HP9000 that 'just
happen to between owners'. The DEC was a multi processor unit, stuffed with
every bite of RAM it could hold, multi scsi ports with load balancing on their
(at that time) best disk system and a custom Oracle install with a highly tuned
(by DEC engineers) Ultrix kernel. We passed then a dmp file with 1 million rows
of data for two tables and 4 SQL scripts to run against the data. Took them all
day to get the results. Did the same test with the HP that had minimal RAM, one
scsi port and only the internal drives and a default Oracle install and only
that tweaking of the HP kernel in Oracle's install manual. Same test ran in 4.5
hours hands down. I left DEC behind at that time, never to return. As of
today, I love the HP's I have to work with. I do not believe them to be
outclassed anywhere and that they do outclass all in terms of reliability and
dependability. I must admit to really enjoying a server platform that does it's
job day in and day out for months or years without so much as a burp. I'm sure
that part of that are three very good SA's, but the hardware/OS speaks for
itself as well.
I did not shed one tear when DEC fell to Compaq, and will not now that
Compaq is falling to HP. I am sure that the good of DEC/Compaq will find it's
way into HP-UX as well as the HP9000 series. So we've only good things to look
forward to.
Dick Goulet
____________________Reply Separator____________________
Author: Peter Barnett <regdba_at_yahoo.com>
Date: 6/4/2002 8:08 AM
It's a shame that Digital had such good computer
scientists and such lousy marketing. Digital Unix and
the AlphaServer were the most stable Unix boxes in the
world. Compaq never did understand the gem it
purchased and HP will never admit that their current
generation of hardware was outclassed by Digital 10
years ago.
All good runs must come to an end. It is just too bad
that the end is an execution by technical nitwits.
- DENNIS WILLIAMS <DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM> wrote:
> Stephane, Hemant
> Below is the official word that I pulled off HP's
> website. It is
> straight PR material, so read between the words as
> you choose. As I recall,
> Compaq had already decided not to build the
> next-generation Alpha chip
> before the merger arose. If you are interested, I
> would suggest that you
> attend the HP roadshow when it comes to a city near
> you and ask them the
> hard questions yourself. Having worked for a
> computer manufacturer in the
> past, I can assure you that the manufacturer would
> appreciate it if you
> bought the last system to come off the production
> line, then never called
> them for support. My company plans to continue
> operating our Tru64 systems
> for several years to come, and they have provided
> wonderful service. But
> we're purchasing new Sun systems.
>
> "In this session, an HP Executive will highlight the
> important current and
> future role HP's business critical and high
> performance AlphaServer(tm)
> products play. We will also discuss the latest
> advancements across the hp
> AlphaServer product family, the latest on the future
> ItaniumR processor
> family, and provide an update on the related
> operating systems strategy. In
> particular, we will share the updated OpenVMS(tm)
> roadmap for continued
> development and support on the AlphaServer platform
> as well as a review of
> the progress to date for porting OpenVMS to
> ItaniumR-based systems.
> Discussion will also include the most
> up-to-the-minute plans for integrating
> Tru64(tm) UNIXR into HP-UX on the ItaniumR
> architecture and the continued
> development and support of Tru64 UNIX on the
> AlphaServer platform."
>
> Dennis Williams
> DBA
> Lifetouch, Inc.
> dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 9:53 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>
> I'd never heard that Oracle has stopped
> or is stopping support for Tru64.
> We have more than 35 production databases
> on Tru64 and have no intention of moving
> out of Alpha-Tru64 in a hurry. We're even
> looking at upgrading a mission critical
> 8iOPS cluster on Tru64 to 9iRAC on Tru64.
>
> Hemant K Chitale
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L"
> <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Sent: Sunday, 02 June, 2002 9:28 PM
>
>
> > Stephane Faroult wrote:
> >
> > > ...Historically, Oracle was a port to
> > > Digital (remember this brand?)
> >
> > Interesting. I'm reading this list because of a
> recent
> > project to retire the Digital-Alpha workstations.
> > The main reason that these machines must be
> de-commissioned is
> > because Oracle stopped supporting Tru64.
> > (Although it needs to be done EVENTUALLY, since
> Alpha
> > is basicly dead anyway.)
> >
> > The Alphas were bought to retire the VMS from 4-7
> years ago!
> >
> > Talk about unfortunate planning!
> > --
> > Aaron Birenboim | The top three attributes of a
> good programmer:
> > Albuquerque, NM | Laziness, Impatience, and
> Hubris
> > aaron_at_boim.com |
> > boim.com/~aaron | -- Randall Schwartz, author
> of perl references
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
> http://www.orafaq.com
> > --
> > Author: Aaron Birenboim
> > INET: aaron_at_boim.com
> >
> > Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051
> FAX: (858) 538-5051
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> >
>
> > To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an
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> > (or the name of mailing list you want to be
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> > also send the HELP command for other information
> (like subscribing).
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
> http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Hemant K Chitale
> INET: hkchital_at_singnet.com.sg
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX:
> (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California -- Public Internet
> access / Mailing Lists
>
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an
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> to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of
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> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB
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> also send the HELP command for other information
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> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
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> --
> Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
> INET: DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX:
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> also send the HELP command for other information
> (like subscribing).
Pete Barnett
Lead Database Administrator
The Regence Group
pnbarne_at_regence.com
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: Peter Barnett
INET: regdba_at_yahoo.com
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Received on Tue Jun 04 2002 - 13:09:24 CDT
