Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

    Bruce,
    
    The performance numbers that Oracle told you, seem a bit conservative. 
    I was told by Oracle a few months ago that they generally require � VUP
    + 1MB of memory per active user.  These numbers were quoted from the
    "Oracle System Sizing Guide" or something of that sort.
    
    Also, I am a little suprised that Oracle are recommending a DECsystem
    solution.  My understanding was that the Oracle Financials have not
    been ported to ULTRIX/RISC, however, this info is a few months old, so
    maybe they have.  All I am getting at is it is worthwhile to ask for a
    demo, before the customer buys off on it.
    
    Michael

RE: .0

One of our customers has purchased Oracle financials and wishes to run 50
concurrent users. Oracle say that they need 1 VUP/MIP per 3 users. This works
out to be quite a large VAX and makes the VAX price very high compared to a
DECsystem. Oracle are suggesting the customer buy a DECsystem 5800. However the

RE: .1

    The performance numbers that Oracle told you, seem a bit conservative. 
    I was told by Oracle a few months ago that they generally require � VUP
    + 1MB of memory per active user.  These numbers were quoted from the
    "Oracle System Sizing Guide" or something of that sort.

It sounds to me like .0's figures  are less conservative than .1's figures.
Did .1 miss the 'per 3 users' in .0 ?

    Re:  The ORACLE Financials:  ORACLE has committed (about a month ago)
    to Digital and customers that the Financials will be ported to ULTRIX/
    RISC asap.  They have already started, and have a couple of RISC
    machines in house to help the port along.  We have many sales pending
    which are relying on the port, so it is in the best interests of all
    to get this done asap.  The database, tools & application development
    products are already on RISC, so the application coming over should be
    straightforward.
    
    We have performed a significant benchmark for a major customer using
    the ORACLE financials & VAX 6000 systems.  Although we are under
    non-disclosure for the details, we were able to get 100 & 125 users
    on a 430 with 2 & 4 second response time averages.  We also did work
    with batch background jobs running concurrently, and showed little
    impact on response times.  
    
    Send me mail, or call if you want to discuss further, but remember, 
    no discussions with customers.  ORACLE has this info, and can use
    it if you ask them to work with you.
    
    Mark
    

I have a similar interest in Oracle financials performance.

We are in the late stages of a major bid where one of the shortlisted 
contenders with us is the dreaded "O".

The system is for financial and related applications in 16 areas to support 
425 concurrent users with various other batch jobs running.  Sub-2 second 
response times are required.

We have bid CA-Masterpiece on RMS for core modules on dual VAX 6430 
cluster, 128 Mb each, 16 RA90 spindles.

Oracle have come in on a Pyramid platform (they were over $A1 million more 
than us 12.5M vs 11.4 M).

As part of the tender, suppliers are REQUIRED to perform load testing on 
the configuration proposed - the proof of the pudding is in the eating...

We will be doing the full RTE bit and have every hope of meeting the 
specification.

A couple of questions:

(1) Does any one know how Oracle and Pyramid would approach a test of this 
type.  Do they have an RTE?

(2) Any ideas on what size/number/configuration of Pyramid systems they would
need to support this load i.e. is there a machine room in the known 
universe big enough to hold all the boxes?...

Michael Booth mentioned in 536.4 that there is a consultant's report which 
says that Oracle cannot support more than 50 concurrent users - is a copy 
of this report available?

Cheers,

Barry
Oz

    For the record, the report mentioned in 536.4 was a verbal report from
    a consultant who preferred to remain anonymous.
    
    ---- Michael Booth
    
    I.E. If it were in writing, I would have sent it everywhere.

    re.4
    I have personally participated in ORACLE Financials benchmarks running
    125 concurrent users via RTE on a 6000-430.  I also would be interested
    in talking with the "analyst" who made the 50 user max claim.
    
    Mark
    

    Now that we have an official statement of co-operation, are their
    any figures and guidelines on the resource requirements of ORACLE
    FINANCIALS on VAX and (prefferably) DECsystem platforms?.
    
    
    Anyway, on Tuesday of this week I had one of our software specialists
    perform load testing on the system of the customer referred to in .0 .
    
    The testing was performed solely using VPA and MONITOR whilst
    monitoring a user load on ORACLE financials.  The system was a VAX
    6320, 64MB, VMS.  ORACLE was V6.2.1 without TPO (will be 6.3 with
    TPO next week!).
    
    For 15 concurrently active users the system used 120% CPU (based
    on 6300 processor) and 60% of memory.  Disk I/O was less than 20
    per second.  There were four database instances active, with only
    one being used for the test.
    
    Any background reports running would tend to use up all of the
    remaining CPU.
    
    From these figures we extrapolated that to support 50 active users
    would require the full capacity of a 6340 with 128MB.  The live
    environment will actually be a DECsystem 58n0.
    
    Beware that these figures are specific to this customer's site but
    may give guidelines as to what you may be letting yourselves in
    for with ORACLE.
    
    One thing was obvious - technically ORACLE is a very poor product
    with excessive resource requirments.
    
    Cheers, Martin

    What is Oracle V6.2.1? The current Oracle version in North America is
    6.0.29. Here in N.A., Oracle said there will be no V6.1. Further, TPO
    has only very recently been unbundled from V6.0.28. So where did V6.2.1
    come from? Is it beta-test?
    
    ---- Michael Booth

    The ORACLE people have said (during joint Digital/Oracle/customer
    meetings) that the current version installed is 6.2.1.  Due to problems
    in the VAX/VMS version of Oracle Financials (yes, they stated that
    the version on Sequent did not have the problems) which include
    the inability to produce a Balance Sheet, they were planning to
    install what they called 6.2.3.  
    
    One, of the four, oracle people said that this version will now
    most likely be called 6.3.
    
    TPO is to be installed this weekend to assist with locking problems
    using the financial.  The O people said that word from Belmont was
    that they (those in Belmont) were amazed that the financials were
    being used without TPO.
    
    I'll be meeting with them again on Tuesday so will clarify the version
    numbering.  Any other questions you might like addressed?.
    
    I did get a copy of their product overview, which includes a sentence
    claing that version 5 had full cluster support.  A very creative
    document, but certainly a more convincing pre-sales tool than one
    of our Rdb glossies.
    
    Cheers, Martin