Oracle DB on W2K vs HP-UX

[RAMMEDJR]

Currently we are running Oracle 8.1.7.3 on HP-UX 11i enterprise server and
use a W2K application server for running our ubes. We are running low on
disk space on the enterprise server and are looking at options for a new
server. We are a government entity that does not require 24x7 usage and we
do not have a high number of transactions occurring on a daily basis. We
are using many OW XE modules such as Financials, A/R, A/P, Fixed Assets,
Procurement, Work Orders, Inventory, Budgeting, Job Cost and Service
Billing.

The cost of a new HP-UX server is quite high and we are looking at the
option of running Oracle DB on a Windows 2000 enterprise server. We do have
a concern on performance/reliability with using W2K vs HP-UX.

Any comments/suggestions from clients running Oracle DB on either platform
would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Dave Rammer

Sheboygan County IS Dept

XE u/2 w/SP21 and J1 oneoff / Ent: HP9000 11i / Oracle 8.1.7.3 / App: W2K

New metaframe: W2K w/Citrix XP FR2

Old metaframe (still some users): NT4 w/Citrix 1.8

 

[altquark]

First of all - have you considered Linux as an alternative if licensing is a huge issue ? Oracle on Linux works absolutely flawlessly - we have a copy running on Redhat Professional for a Disaster Recovery system. Of course, JDE won't support this configuration unless enough pressure is given.

I really don't think theres a stability/reliability issue with running Oracle on Windows2K versus HP-UX - however, there are some major differences between running Oneworld services on NT vs Unix.

The method of creating queues and running batch processes is certainly different under windows compared to Unix - and I feel the reliability of the unix processes probably are a little better due to unix memory handling. Secondly, as you know Oracle requires a LOT of memory - and there are limits to Windows 2000 with how much memory can be recognized.

However, I know of several happy customers running Oneworld on Oracle/NT - though many have considered moving off the oracle database because of costs (to SQL Server or UDB).

 

[Larry_Jones]

We're in a similar situation as you Dave - although our bottleneck is Disk I/O (harder to fix than just adding disk drives) - and are budgeting now for server replacements next year.
We also found that the cost of purchasing a new RISC/UNIX box is hard to support when a great Intel based box is so much more cheaper. Our HPUX box has been great - but they're no longer competitive. This is one of the reasons we bought OneWorld to begin with - to avoid lock-in to a particular hardware/software platform - so I suppose we should be happy (;]

I'm not thrilled about running Oracle on Win2K/2003 even though I know it will work. I wish we could go a Oracle/Linux combo as suggested by Jon - but because of JDE's position that its not supported (stupid considering that Oracle stands behind Redhat 110%) we can't consider it.

Anyway back to your issue Dave:

If your problem is truly just one of Disk Space why not consider:
a) buy more/bigger drives for your HP/UX box
-or-
b) split your database and put the object specs tablespaces on your deployment server - freeing up E.S. space for production data
-or-
c) combination of a and b

If you really want to move Oracle to an Intel platform and leave your E.S. on HPUX it will work also.

I would love to hear from those who have gone thru OneWorld migrations from/to dissimiliar platforms - what worked well? what didn't? what would you change if you could?

 

[AIUK]

We're going through the same thing here ... the high costs to upgrade a new IBM RS/6000 P series for additional performance & disk space has led us to look at Windows Server 2003 on IBM X series with a SAN ... and with the same concerns!

We're planning on keeping a mix of Windows & Unix as Enterprise servers as we have a lot of in-house development and the database will remain Oracle but on a Windows Server 2003 server.

We will be upgrading the existing OS to AIX 5.2 to get to Oracle 9i having to apply service packs and base ESU's on the way, with a lot of retro fit development no doubt, just to be able to migrate to Oracle 9i for Windows Server 2003! We're doing this in a lab test environment before we purchase any new servers and it's the software upgrade path we have to take anyway soon as AIX 4.3.3 will be unsupported next year.

We currently have a 150GB database - live only, not counting all the other test/development/training/migration environments we have!! - with 400 users increasing to 700 by the end of business rollout.

So again we are keen to hear of any comments and experiences ... and with Oracle on Windows Server 2003. We'll keep ya posted on our plans/developments too.

Thx.

 

[Larry_Jones]

AIUK,

out of curiosity - what size box are you looking at for your new Oracle DB server? We're deliberately oversizing our box (4 cpu, 8GB RAM) for our current needs which are probably close to 2 CPU and 4GB.

Our user base is around 140 (80+ concurrent) and our database is about 50GB.

Thx,

 

[smorrison]

Hi,
One thing you need to be aware of is the memory issues of an Oracle database running on Windows....

In Unix each Oracle connection starts its own thred or process on the Unix box. In windows all connections / cache / SGA e.t.c. all runs as one - ORACLE.EXE. Windows has a limitation of memory adressing of 2GB per process.

You can add a setting into the boot.ini of the server "/3GB" which will allow is to address 3GB of virtual memory (actually around 2.7 GB then the database cannot open any new connections).

We had an issue once we got above aruond 950 connections to the database we could no longer operate as the database would not allow new logins as it had no free memory. This is very bad as
a) you need to keep reducing your SGA which means less performance.
b) The solution is not scalable.

Peope may reply to this thread and say that you can also enter another paramater into the boot.ini called the PAE switch. This will allow you to address more memory on the server but only for the SGA and it does not work very well.

You need to think about this when purchasing the server - there is no point purchasing an 8GB memory server when you can only address 3 - 4 GB of it.

If you still want to go ahead we have just moved from an 8CPU, 8GB RAM windows server to a Unix server and do not need the 8way server any more. Feel free to send me a mail and we may be able to sell it to you at an obviously huge discount.

Regards,

Stuart Morrison
[email protected]

 

[Larry_Jones]

Stuart,

thanks for the heads up!

Can you expand more on the issues with the boot.ini PAE switch? I think we'd be able to live with only having the buffer cache above 4M given our number of users/connections, but if there are other issues (performance, stability, etc) we really need to know about them.

Post the specs on that server and your asking price - we might be interested

Thanks again,

 

[kf]

Stuart,
A couple of things to add to what you said below about Oracle on
Win2x.. There is a limitation with win2x standard of 2gb per process, win2x
advanced gives you the option of using the /PAE (4gb+) or /3gb (for machines
with up to 4gb) switches in the boot.ini. Oracle has configuration options
in the init.ora in the enterprise edition, called VLM/AWE which allows you to
move the data cache to the memory beyond the 3gb. To reduce the size of the
sga which is limited to 3gb you can use options such as MTS and Orastack.exe,
both of which work very well.
And if larry hasn't already beaten me to it, I would be interested in that
8-way box, depending on the discount of course!

Regards,
Kieran Fitzgerald

 

[AIUK]

The intel server spec'd had 4 2.8Ghz Intel xeon processors and rated against the unix server it has a much, much higher Transaction Processing Performance (TPC) rate.
We're waiting for further spec's on some different unix servers at the mo, and thankfully swaying to stay with unix!!