Back by Popular Demand – SSIS and SQL Replication Virtual Courses
Taught by SQL Server MVP Eric Johnson, these virtual online courses provide you in-depth information for SQL Server Replication and SQL Server Integration Services. These 12 sessions are a clear value, at $169 for full SSWUG.ORG members and $199 for non-members. Registration ends March 31. Courses are available for the entire month of April.
Use these links for more class information or to register for Replication or SSIS.
Oracle Options on Itanium
Discontinuing support for the Itanium based servers on the part of Oracle may boost SUN sales for the same calabre machines, but it won’t make customers happy. Large hardware investments become nice boat anchors. Information Week clarifies the issues well.
Oracle is not the only software manufacturer abandoning the Itanium chip. This quote taken from ZDNet gives you a sampling of some of the big players exiting the Intel chip.
"Ending Itanium support
Oracle will join Microsoft, Ubuntu and Red Hat in stopping support for the chip. Microsoft announced plans to stop software development support for Itanium in April 2010. Popular Linux distribution Ubuntu ceased porting versions to the Itanium and Sparc platforms with the launch of Ubuntu 10.10 in August 2010. Red Hat announced plans to cease support in December 2009."
I don’t see the loss of Microsoft support having quite the same impact. MS has clearly focused on the scale out model with the Parallel Data Warehouse. This allows the X86 chip to compete in performance while scaling very nicely.
For those organizations wishing to conitnue their investment on the Itanium platform the options are limited. Originally I thought SQL Server was an option, but, as you can see Microsoft has also stopped development. Converting over to Microsoft BI platform will require key investments in new hardware as well. For those of you using the Itanium processor with Oracle…here are some options available to you.
Leon writes in his blog:
…customers do have a choice. DB2 has a really nifty way of turning itself in to a DBMS that understands Oracle flavor of SQL.DBAs and programmers can keep their Oracle skills and continue to develop using PL/SQL and SQL*Plus like interfaces.
From Noel’s blog:
The good news is that there is a new option that has recently emerged and has been gaining ground. Enter the “database compatibility layer,” which changes the way migrations are done. IBM DB2 9.7 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows offers out-of-the-box compatibility for Oracle’s PL/SQL and Sybase ASE, which allows many applications to run against DB2 without any application code changes. Although the database compatibility layer does not offer 100% compatibility today, based on customer feedback from more than two dozen interviews that I have conducted this year, one can usually expect 90% or more compatibility, requiring only minor code changes. This is huge, which makes migrations simpler, taking only days and weeks as opposed to months and years. IBM jointly developed the database compatibility layer technology with vendors EnterpriseDB (for Oracle compatibility) and ANTs (for Sybase ASE compatibility), who also offer their own database migration solutions.
Alex writes:
DB2 is a superior database to Oracle, which is a mixture of Corruption-based selling (at least in the Third World) and ‘Voodoo Science’ (as described by the Late and Great Guido Sohne – http://www.facebook.com/l/cd3d0KyxAFIDceT1-RovlbI0LBA/cd3wd.com/GuidoSohne/ ). Do not I think migrate to SQL Server – choose DB2. But dont think I am anti-Oracle – I have only a good experience of the database – I guess Larry is the man behind these strange commercial manoeuvres
Jason writes:
PostgreSQL via EnterpriseDB is another viable option. Actually, if I remember correctly, IBM is using the EnterpriseDB product to do this in DB2.
I did a quick Google search on EnterpriseDB where you can see how Posgres implements compatibility with Oracle.
Sherif ElKiki writes:
This may result a great loss Some users will transfer to DB2 (High DB Range), part will transfer to MS SQL (Medium DB range),others will transfer to mysql. Current difficult economy state will force users to make use of their Itenium servers and use Oracle alternatives .
David writes:
I think that Oracle is following Microsoft in this: http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2010/04/02/windows-server-2008-r2-to-phase-out-itanium.aspx. Without Microsoft, and now Oracle, Itanium will become history sooner than later.
If both Microsoft and Oracle are abandoning the Itanium processor, is it time to consider re-purposing those machines for other tasks? Or do you consider migrating your Oracle databases into DB2, Posgres or some other database engine on the same platform?
If you have feedback, be sure to drop me a note on Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail at btaylor@SSWUG.org.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
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