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Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

Title:	DEC Rdb against the World

Moderator:	HERON::GODFRIND

Created:	Fri Jun 12 1987
Last Modified:	Thu Feb 23 1995
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1348
Total number of notes:	5438

536.0. "same old story" by CSOA1::WILKINS () Tue Jan 16 1990 15:24

We have a customer that has Oracle 6.0.27.6 and Oracle Financials V4 
running on an 8350, and surprise, performance is awful.  They came
right out and stated that Oracle has not lived up to their expectations,
and they feel they were misled by the Oracle reps concerning what
Oracle can and can't do, as well as performance.  However, their
financial guys love Oracle's flexibility and are committed to it.  
They've spent months developing applications and they'd rather throw
out the VAX than throw out Oracle.  They aquired the 8350 through a 
merger by the way, otherwise they're an IBM shop.  However, they like 
the VAX; it has yet to go down, and they are impressed with VMS.

Oracle is in there telling them to buy a Sequent.  They've asked us what
they can do to improve the performance without going to Sequent.  
They typically have 10 concurrent users interactively, and performance
is fine until they run a batch job in the background, which brings
the system to its knees.  Their financial guys run accounting jobs
overnight which take 6-7 hours to complete when the machine is unloaded.  
They said they would be happy if they could get this down to <2 hours.  

Their 8350 is running VMS 5.1 (soon to be 5.2), has 48 MB memory, a
KDB50, and 2 RA81s and an RA82.  The system manager has done his
best to tune the system, they keep the disks defragmented and have
very few hard page faults (though many soft faults).  Monitor typically
shows the CPU being 99% utilized.

I don't believe they have Oracle's TPO option.  Would this give them 
any improvement?

From what I've read in this conference, it would be better to upgrade 
them to a 6000-410 than a 6000-320 because Oracle gets limited by
single stream performance, correct?  Would there be any cheaper 
options to going to a 6000-410? 

Any input would be appreciated (besides telling them to buy Rdb).

Mark

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
536.1	What is the working set of the batch jobs	HSOMAI::SPARKS	I think, Therefore I am	`Tue Jan 16 1990 22:01`	16
	Mark, First no help to you, but I think you should send a copy of this note to the group doing the study on making Oracle a CMP, even for only Financials. From what I've read, the 6000 410 is a better choice. As for the current problem they have probably already done this, but it could have been overlooked, set up the jobs that run at night in batch with special working sets, since the machine has 48 meg, and not used during this period, let the batch jobs have lots memory. I have supported Oracle on sites, and this is about the only real help I can give you. Sorry. Glenn Sparks
536.2	Welcome to the world	KCBBQ::DUNCAN	Oracle ... the designer database	`Wed Jan 17 1990 03:21`	22
	�� I don't believe they have Oracle's TPO option. Would this give them �� any improvement? I believe you can ONLY buy V6/TPO .. ie I don't think you can buy V6 without TPO. V6/TPO gives them row level locking and allows more users at the expense of very high cpu utilization rates. You can have the customer login to SQLplus or SQLdba and it will give them the version number and some other information. It will say something like "Oracle Production V6.0.26.x/TPO - Production". �� From what I've read in this conference, it would be better to upgrade �� them to a 6000-410 than a 6000-320 because Oracle gets limited by �� single stream performance, correct? Correct. If there is any batch processing at all, 7 vup in one processor is better than 2-3.8 cpus. Database writer (DBWR) and log writer (LGWR) processes can only run on one cpu at a time. When you think Oracle, think BIG uniprocessor. �� Would there be any cheaper options to going to a 6000-410? Sure.... get a Sequent !
536.3	Please send account details	CLOVE::SILVERBERG		`Fri Jan 19 1990 14:04`	14
	Please send me mail (NUTMEG::SILVERBERG) with the name and address of the account. You state that ORACLE is telling them to buy a Sequent, and this is the type of problem we need to eliminate. I need specific customers & situations, and this looks like one we can use. A recent interactive benchmark with the ORACLE Financials on 6000- 430, with a multi-gigabyte database, 30% system utilization taken up with concurrent batch processes, a real customer's data and transaction set, and 125 interactive user load via RTE gave us under 2 sec response time. Not too shabby. Mark
536.4	Clarify please	CLYPPR::BOOTH	What am I?...An Oracle?	`Fri Jan 19 1990 15:35`	10
	How much memory was used? What types of transaction were done? Were the RTE users doing anything or just simulating terminal overhead? Was any terminal think time used? How many D/C TPS does this translate to? I'm questioning because Oracle itself claims 3 users/VUP on their financials. This benchmark is substantially higher (6 users /VUP) than that. We also have a report from an independent consultant who says that Oracle can only handle 50 users MAX. ---- Michael Booth
536.5	We still lose	MAIL::DUNCANG	Gerry Duncan @KCO	`Fri Jan 19 1990 18:11`	15
	This works out to be 6.5 user per/vup. So, here's the cost analysis according to Oracle's may 15, 1989 price sheets: General ledger for Sequent, 32 users $46,000 VAX (4.9 vups) 6410 91,300 (32 users / 6.5 per vup) Database, base price Sequent, 32 users $46,000 VAX 6410 91,300 So, looks like Oracle is forcing the hardware issue by their licensing strategy..... -- gerry