Wait on Oracle 10g Upgrade - ' Homogeneity Problem ' (
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The homogeneity problem.
I talked to Mike Herald, a consultant with Pronto North America, in Eden Prairie, Minn., and another TCM panel member. As he pointed out, there are no big shops that dont have a mix of this and that, whether youre talking databases, operating systems or hardware. Everybodys running heterogeneous shops.
But with Oracle, if you start out with one flavor, youre stuck. The migration path isnt there. If you start out on Unix, youve got to stay on Unix. Same thing with Linux. Plus, its all got to be done with Oracle databases. And just forget trying to run an NT operating system. After all, as Herald put it and as we all know, Larry wants Bill to go away. End of story.
Whats the compelling business value?
This is the main crux of the TCM platforms argument. As Vaidyanatha puts it, if youre an Amazon.com, youve likely got an aggressive upgrade timeline. One concrete example of a compelling business reason to upgrade is exemplified by Heralds wife, who recently deployed 10g in order to remain consistent with Oracle Developments path for Java application deployment, which would enable effective integration with the Oracle customer relationship management (CRM) applications at a later date.
She was working on an application for gathering and configuring end-customer order requirements. Each order for a specific end customer was highly customized, making order information-gathering in the current manual system a very complex and error-prone process. The project, which rang in for about $1 million, deployed using Oracle 10g and following Oracles CRM standards for Java application deployment.
10g has been very successful, Herald reports, in its addressing of the issues at hand, whereas 9i wouldnt allow the proper use of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) without implementing a multitude of bug fixes.
No compelling reason to use EJB? No compelling need to rush to an untried platform? Dont drink the Kool-Aid. Join us, The Cautious Majority, and take the tried-and-true, wait-and-see stance toward 10g.
Write to Lisa Vaas at lisa_vaas@comcast.net.
eWEEK.com Database Center Editor Lisa Vaas has written about enterprise applications since 1997.
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