Re: Opinions Wanted on Oracle for NT

Atif Ahmad Khan...
> Did you read my entire articel? I use the standard Unix mail program from
 within PL/SQL
> procedures to mail myself automated daily reports. 'mail' does have alot
 to do with Oracle.
> If your application does not require it then please dont assume that this
 would be the
> case with everybody else also.

[snip]

> I have been using NT since its first release 3.5! And from what I have
 read so far
> from your posts, makes me fairly certain that I know more about NT than
 you do.
> I have the NT server 4.0 on one of my home machines. I feel that its a
 pretty OS
> for worstation use. Only die-hard Windows fans even think about using it
 as a server
> platform.

I hate to burst your bubble but...:

1. The first publicly available NT version was 3.1 aka Windows NT Advanced Server. They dropped the Advanced Server portion with 3.5
2. A sendmail port to NT is freely available. There are many other FREE command line utils to send a email message (a mail client program) from a command prompt (wrmail, sendsmtp, etc.). SSH is available commercially as well as most unix shell emulators.
3. POP3 is for client to server mail access, SMTP is for server to server mail access (also some clients to server).
4. You are correct when you say there is no built in SMTP/POP3 mail SERVER for NT but what you're talking about only requires a mail CLIENT. On the other hand, there are about a dozen SMTP/POP3 servers less than $500 for an unlimited number of users. Some are even free for a small number of users (about two dozen). MS Exchange 5.0 has SMTP/POP3 built in. Exchange does lots more than sendmail (Can you say groupware on Unix?) but costs about $1000 with only five client licenses.

>
> P.S. I have noticed that most of the people defending NT are not really
 very familiar
> with what Solaris X86 has to offer.
>

You are correct on this one. But I'm not claiming to "I know more about <insert OS here> than you do". I'm simply pointing out that you don't know as much about NT as you think you do! You certainly seem to be an expert on Unix but I consider you a novice with NT (and I do not consider myself an expert on NT).

The original poster wants opinions of Oracle on NT. My only gripe with Oracle on NT is with the 16-bit SQL*Net Manager. Port it to 32-bits or include it in the NT Install program (it's in the 16-bit Windows install program). I spent more time trying to locate this program to setup SQL*Net than actually setting up our multiple Oracle instances.

As for questions from the original post, here's my answers/opinions:
>Can the App & Oracle reside on the same NT box?

Yes. We do this in a production environment for small three-tier installs:  DB and App servers on the NT box, clients distributed throughout the network. When developing the app server we use separate machines. It's easier to reboot the app server after a GPF than to restart both the app and DB server.

>Do I need two NT servers (one for the app & one for Oracle)?

No. The only NT box you need is for the Oracle Instance you want to connect to. Using SQL*Net you can connect from different clients: DOS, WFW, Win95, NT Workstation, other NT Servers, and even Unix (you get the idea)

>Can I have more than one instance of Oracle running on one NT box?

Yes. Just keep in mind the memory, disk, and licensing requirements. We currently have multiple instances for development on one development server. Same goes for QA/pre-release testing.

>Should I move to squash this now and insist on a unix database?

If you have a large distributed database, lots of simultaneous connects to the Oracle instance, or a mission critical application I would not put it on NT until Clustering solution is a built-in and *stable* feature of NT (currently scheduled for NT 5 in early 1998, available as Beta now). If you currently have a mixed networking environment (Unix, Microsoft, Novell, MACs) and Unix experience, stick with Unix. If you are only running Microsoft/Novell and have no one on staff with Unix or Oracle experience, go with NT: the learning curve is less steep.

You are completely mistaken if you think NT will replace Unix as the platform of choice for Oracle in the near future. You are also mistaken if you think NT is a "toy" OS and will always remain a "toy" OS. NT runs Oracle now and it runs it well, it just doesn't run it as well as Unix runs it today.

Just my two cents,

Scott

ps. Post the NT versus Unix flames to comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy Received on Tue May 06 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT