Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

1217.0. "Oracle7 Slow Out Of The Gate" by SIERAS::WALLIS (Barry Wallis | Save the wails) Thu Dec 31 1992 00:04

{Computerworld, December 21, 1992, page 4}

ORACLE7 SLOW OUT OF THE GATE

Oracle Corp. missed a commitment to ship its overdue Oracle7 database In volume
this fall managing to deliver production copies only about 20 selected customer
sites as today.

As thousands of Oracle user sites await shipment, the company now says they can
expect volume deliveries of Unix and Digital Equipment Corp. VAX/VMS versions
by February.

Meanwhile, early reports from the sites just beginning to use Oracle 7 Indicate
that some are using many of the software's new distributed database features
for client/server computing. Instead, they are using the release as a
performance upgrade from the 4-year-old 0racle Version 6.0.

These sites have so far noted few bugs, most said they are stress-testing their
new software for a few weeks before putting It into production. Many of the same
sites have been participating In Oracle's Alliance beta-test program which began
in August 1991. 

When Oracle 7 was announced in June 1992, shipments were promised for October. 
Oracle shipped the VAX/VMS version to a few customers on Oct. 31 and last week
claimed it would deliver Unix versions to select sites with  Hewlett-Packard
Co., IBM, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Pyramid Technology Corp.  and Sequent
Computer Systems, Inc. machines by Dec. 21.

"It's a type of controlled release, I guess you could say," said Tim Negris,
senior director for server product marketing. "We're offering production
support for Oracle 7 applications to customers who sign up for that service. 
We'll work with any customer who requests it."


WAITING GAME

"We've watched the semantics flip back and forth for months now," said Terence
Quinn, an analyst at Kidder, Peabody & Co. In New York. "It's much later than
the users expected, but the sales has been saying that the  production version
wouldn't be available until early 1993."

Tardy production deliveries are not a major problem, according to  analysts.
"Users would rather see them ship it three or four months late and bug-free
than trying to push it out the door in the fall time frame they  promised,"
said John Morrell a Unix analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham,
Mass.

But some early 0racle7 customers pressed Oracle for production level  software,
supported by Oracle's customer hot line, partly because  of their own
contractual commitments to end users. "The people who  have [production Oracle
7] are asking to get it early," said Jim  Bosco, project manager at ITT
Hartford Life Cos. $l billion Employee Benefits Division in Hartford, Conn.

"We went Into production this week," said Dennis Erskine, president  of
Intelligent Networks, Inc., a Chantilly, Va., Oracle value-added  reseller that
is shipping a 400-node distributed database network based  on Oracle 7 and DEC
VAXs to a large customer next month.

Intelligent Networks, which will build and operate the distributed  database
network for People Karch International, a Chantilly, Va.  fitness chain and
day-care center operator, said it is still stress-testing many of Oracle7's key
features, such as two-phase  commit for real-time updates, snapshots,
referential integrity and the  SQLNet 2.0 communications package.

Some early sites said they viewed Oracle7 as an upgrade and did not try  to
exercise all of Its new features. J. J. Kenny Co., a New York  firm that rates
municipal bonds and provides Information services to brokers, is in the midst
of a downsizing move from an IBM 3090 Model  150E mainframe. It plans to have
1,200 users for its 2OG-byte Oracle7 database by the end of 1993.

"We have gotten clearance from Oracle for production support for an early
release, 7.0.11, " said Ira Kirschner, director of technical services  at J. J.
Kenny. "By the end of this week we expect to have upgraded  our whole
[computer] environment to 7.0.11."

-----------------------------Sidebar------------------------------------------
ORACULAR VIEW

In early December some users found minor bugs In Oracle 7.0.10, which were
fixed in 7.0.11. the release now approved for production at some sites.

The reported bugs, which occurred during the loading of database tables, did
not cause a system crash, but Oracle recommended waiting for 7.0-11.

The general availability production release of Oracle 7 In early 1993 will be
called 7.0.12, an Oracle spokeswoman said.

The following was culled from comp.databases on Usenet. Thought it might 
help some of you in positioning against Oracle7.

Path: pa.dec.com!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!dtix.dt.navy.mil!mimsy!prometheus!media!hqda-ai!mark
From: [email protected] (Mark Le Vea)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: ORACLE: I'm MAD AS HELL and I'm not going to take it anymore!
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 4 Mar 93 16:56:13 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Artificial Intelligence Center
Lines: 48

I would like t know the names of the trolls who wrote the installation
program for Oracle. 

SYNTAX ERRORS on scripts that you must key in verbatim. Does anyone know how
to shell program at ORACLE? Of course you are told to run the entire 
installation in the Bourne Shell (including scripts?). They run in the 
"C" shell but I doubt they work. SEE MAKES DIE.

DEFAULT SETTINGS cause the installation program to overfill the database
and die. Great planning folks!

MAKES DIE in the middle of the installation. Of course they tell you to run
the scripts (mentioned above) to fix a make problem.

PREMATURE EOF ON TAPES is the message you get instead of the software you
payed for. Of course if you manipulate the tape manually you can get the
code off it. Try a figure that one out.

FIXING THEIR PROGRAMS is what's in store if you try to install the patches.

DOCUMENTATION ERRORS are usually reasonably acceptable but when the docs 
tell you to go off and do a whole bunch of work that you don't need to do
and the interface tells you something else.... GGRRRRRR!!!!

WATCH YOUR BACK! If you have an environment set up using a .cshrc and a .login,
the install saves your .cshrc to .cshrc.old but blows away your .login
completely. And the best part is the new .login calls ORACLE_HOME before it
is declared in the .cshrc and then does not execute so you get ZIP for an
environment. What a concept!

THE BEST PART is when you have to sit there for three hours, hitting a return
every 10 minutes (or it won't continue), then coming within ten minutes of a 
successful installation and having the thing fail. You can't redo the 
oracle.install cuz it finds the old DB file. If you remove the file then it 
dies because it can't shutdown the database.

AND THESE PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING ALL WAY TO THE BANK!

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FOR $12 GRAND THESE DAYS?

Does anyone at ORACLE know how much BAD QUALITY costs?

Thank you and have a pleasant day :-)
-- 
	Mark Le Vea			   
UUCP:  *!uunet!cos!hqda-ai!mark    ARPA:  [email protected]
Paris Corporation, P.O. Box 284, Leesburg, Va. 22075 703-592-3030
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