Powerhouse & database choices.

[Edis, Bob]

G'day Russell

The HP/UX with an Oracle 8.n (or 8i) solution is a popular approach these
days.  You can find out from the conformance table on Cognos' web site about
what databases are supported on the HP/UX platform.

However, you need to review your decision about HP/UX.  according the a
TechData survey I read (Are Proprietary RISC Servers More Expensive Than
Their UNIX Alternatives?, TechWise Research, May 1999), TOC on an
AlphaServer, whether running OpenVMS (preferred) or True64 UNIX is
significantly lower over a 3 to 5 year period than other server choices,
particularly if you plan on clustering at any stage.

If you do decide to go Alpha/VMS then Oracle Rdb is the RDBMS of choice for
performance.  The largest and fastest internet search engines (AltaVista,
Northern Light, Lycos, etc) use this combination as well as many stock
exchanges and telecoms around the world.  However, Oracle 8.0.n, Sybase, and
other RDBMS vendors also have products that perform well on
AlphaServer/OpenVMS platforms.  OpenVMS administrators are usually cheaper
than UNIX admin people. In fact, according to a recent issue of Contract
Professional magazine (www.cpuniverse.com) UNIX heads the top of the list as
to the most in demand skill set in the USA.  High demand usually leads to
high salaries/rates than competitor technologies.

I suggest that before you jump into any particular platform/database
technology you consider the following:

1. Total cost of ownership over a period of time significant to your
business
2. Cost of human resources required to support the hardware, OS and RDBMS.
3. Performance of the platform/RDBMS combo in respect to working with
PowerHouse 4GL.
4. Availability of resources, both technology (HW/SW) and Human.
5. Implementation time and difficulty for each candidate solution.
6. Upfront costs.
7. Additional benefits and opportunities that can be gained from each
alternative.

We use PowreHouse with Windows NT and MS SQL Server 7.0 here.  Performance
is not an issue so much as cost.  I would not be satisfied with this setup
if there was a greater demand on resources though.

Good luck in your project.

Regards,

Robert Edis (Blue)
Manager - Business Intelligence
FleetPride 
520 Lake Cook Rd., Suite 100
Deerfield IL 60015
Tel: 847.572.8039
Fax: 847.444.1096
www.fleetpride.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Russell Garner [mailto:russell_garner@aapl.com.au]
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2001 10:38 PM
To: powerh-l@lists.swau.edu
Subject: Powerhouse & database choices.



Dear all,

My company is endeavouring to port our current Powerhouse software onto
another 
platform away from non supported Data General and Interbase products,
and I am 
just after opinions on what people think are our replacement options.

We originally went down the NT/SQL7 path but ran into data throughput
issues
as an ODBC connection to the database isn't feasible for us.

With this, and for many other reasons, we've decided to stay with a Unix
solution.
HP/UX is at the top of the list for now, but I'd like to get some
feedback from 
others out there as to what they have and their impressions of it.

Since Interbase is no longer supported, what databases are
recommended/viable for 
use on a Unix box (HP or other) We currently only have twenty or so
users on the 
system and the database size (currently Interbase) is only about 4Gig.
We don't 
want to go the Oracle way as we don't have the manpower to look after
it.

Any ideas, suggestions, or general comments are warmly welcomed.

Thanks
Russell Garner
Senior Analyst
Australian Arrow 




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