Oracle (not Rdb) database

[Bill D Michael]

PH 8.20D6 will allow you to access Oracle 8i tables, same as if they were
RMS files, with minimal effort, for things like QUIZ. (Or indeed any "read
only" access, REFERENCE files in Quick and such.) So writing new code to
access your new database should not be that bad. Even "simple" Quick
screens aren't bad, as long as you're careful with locking and COMMITs. QTP
can easily lock up your whole system if you let it take the defaults -
COMMIT AT 1 TRANSACTION and SET LOCK RECORD UPDATE in every source is
highly recommended! (Also recommend _not_ using SUBDICT=SEARCH; go ahead
and specify the database name everywhere.)

However, I would be very careful in just "upgrading" from 7.10 to 8.20,
regarding your current applications that will be staying around, whether
they'll be touching Oracle or not. This is a nightmare to do, primarily due
to two factors; the removal of "VMSisms" from 8.xx, and the large number of
serious bugs in 8.20. 8.30 is rumored to be much easier to move to on the
"VMSisms", but of course it's going to be out "real soon now", and hasn't
yet been through the painful debugging 8.10/8.20 has over the last couple
of years. If I were in your situation, I'd get 8.20 for "new stuff", but
keep 7.10 for the existing code.

I'd also rethink running Oracle 8 on VMS. There are a number of
problems/issues there that (apparently) aren't a problem on other
platforms. Given the ideal situation (if PH/Oracle/VMS can ever be
idealized!), I'd put the Oracle off on a Unix box, with the PowerHouse app
on VMS... If you have to keep it all on "one box", plan on doubling the
horsepower of that box, or you're not going to be happy with the
performance.

Bill





Mike Chalenburg <chalenburg@harding.edu>@cube.swau.edu on 06/21/2001
11:07:08 AM

Please respond to chalenburg@harding.edu

Sent by:  powerh-l-admin@cube.swau.edu



To:   powerh-l@lists.swau.edu
cc:
Subject:  Oracle (not Rdb) database


Good morning,

Given the current thread on Rdb, I'd like to get advice on a separate but
related topic.

We are running an Alpha cluster with VMS 7.2-1 (soon to be 7.3) and
Powerhouse 7.10F2.  After years of home grown software, about 95% in
Powerhouse, we are moving to a 3rd party vendor for all of our
applications.
We are down to two vendors and the similarity is that they both run on
Oracle 8.1.7 (not Rdb).  We intend to run the database server portion on
the
VMS cluster.

There are a few of our applications that will not be replaced by the 3rd
party product.  Also it would be very helpful to be able to modify some of
our applications to look at the Oracle database.  Is any of this feasible?
What kinds of pitfalls are there?  I had understood that we would be able
to
use Powerhouse to access the Oracle database.  Is that correct?

Thanks for your help.

Mike

|------------------------------------------------------------|
| Mike Chalenburg         |  Harding University              |
| chalenburg@harding.edu  |  Information Technology Services |
| 501-279-4041            |  Manager, MIS                    |
|------------------------------------------------------------|
        The opinions expressed are those of the writer
       and not necessarily those of Harding University.



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