Re: MS SQL Server Evaluation

Comments in-line.

Hans Forbrich wrote:

> Howard J. Rogers wrote:
>

>>
>> Now this is where it gets interesting, because my list of RAC benefits 
>> would
>> read:
>>
>> 1. High availability
>> 2. Scale Up (do more work in the same time)
>> 3. Speed Up (do the same work in less time)

Good point. You can actually do rolling upgrades with RAC under 9.2.0.4 if you know how. It will just become easier with 10g.

> that is being flogged with RAC in 10g? I realize there are likely a
> number of caveats to that 'capability', but if even somewhat true, this
> has got to be a real benefit for some shops.
>
> BTW - The majority of customers I see have 2-4 CPU 'SMP' (ignoring the
> local telco with significantly larger - up to 64 - processor systems). I
> have to agree that most customers I see do not need the HA or
> scalability [theoretical] benefits of RAC - yet. So I tend to agree
> with your argument as valid across my customer base.

This might be related to geography. I would expect that there would be more need for larger boxes in the US than in Alberta or most places in Australia. I see a very large percentage of boxes at >2 CPUs.

> Based on previous discussions, Daniel's customer base hass proven to be
> significantly different from mine. Therefore he, and they, apparently
> can quickly see benefit from RAC.
>
> <speculation>
> When I worked for Oracle (I saw Oracle8, Oracle8i, Oracle9i and
> Oracle9iR2 released), we were strongly encouraged not to say (or even
> imply) that RAC is an upgrade to OPS. The water-cooler reasoning
> included: OPS had such a poor reputation that marketing wanted to
> separate RAC from OPS in customers' minds. (Other such talk centered
> around price differences between OPS and RAC.)

That goes without saying. No doubt there is some salesperson somewhere saying there is no relationship between Exp and DataPump.

> However, the same water-cooler discussions did conclude that code and/or
> algorithms from OPS were kept where appropriate, and we had a lot of fun
> speculating what 'appropriate' meant.
> </speculation>
>
> /Hans

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)