tru64 5.1a on ES47

[Biljana Stefanovic]

Hi,
I am interested in the possibility of installing Tru64 5.1a on ES47 being aware of the minimum requirement of 5.1b. I have to keep my Oracle database v. 7.3.4.4 and the last version of operating system it is certifired with is 5.1a. If anybody has any experience with this I would appreciate any suggestion, help ...

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Oracle 7.3 huh? How old is your car? :-)
I know it is a drag/hassle, and you don;t want to hear this, but you really should consider upgrading no?

Oracle engineering, ahnd in hand with Tru64 engineering, have worked hard to improve their performance and functionalit over the releases. Direct_io, bigpages, lots of big and little things. You are missing out on that.

Just run 7.3.4.4 on V5.1b and be happy?
I expect it to just work.

I can not expect Oracle to keep on trying those old version versus new OS releases.. it makes no business sense for them.

Or, compromise and go for an ES45 1250 Mhz with V5.1A
For some applications that is even faster than an ES47.

fwiw,
Hein.

[Alexey Borchev]

No experience with exatly Tru64 5.1a + Ora 7.3.4.4 .

But I would try 5.1b + Oracle.

IMHO, integration between HW platform and OS is much closer than between Oracle and OS.

[Han Pilmeyer]

What kind of system are you running with today?

I don't want to stear you away from a nice new shining ES47 system, but it may not do what you want. We can probably offer better advice if you tells us what you're trying to achieve.

Oracle did drop support for 7.3 several years ago. It really is time to move on.

[Biljana Stefanovic]

Hi Han,
I am aware of the fact that Oracle 7.3 is desupported rdbms but we have to keep it. At the moment, Oracle 7.3.4, Oracle Forms 3.0 are running on Alpha 2100. The idea is to move on, so we are thinking of buying 'new shining es47'. We should keep 7.3.4 and Forms 3.0 on es47, but also use it for some new software and in the future perform upgrade, and quit with old versions. So, this is the shortest version of my story. I would ask for the clarification of your statement that es47 may not do what I want.
Regards,
Biljana Stefanovic

[Hein van den Heuvel]

The total power is very comparable. The ES47 has slightly higher average latency than an ES45, but shines in other areas.

Either system will be about 10x faster than the 2100.
Does it matter whether it is 8,9,10 or 11x ?
Check out:

http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/performance/perf_by_perf.html

And in finer detail:

http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/a-chart2.html

I love the EV7 building blocks to get to large GS1280.
The ES47 would be a great stepping stone if you might go to GS1280 eventually.
But if 4p is all you'll ever need, a basic ES45 may serve your needs better (price/performance/simplicity), and does not require 5.1b to boot.

Again, I love 5.1b, notably for its big page support, but since you would really like to stick to 5.1a...

Good luck,
Hein.

[Han Pilmeyer]

That's exactly what I was think too Hein. Note that V5.1A is in prior version support, but will continue to be supported until the end of June 2007. V5.1B will be supported until at least 2011 and will continue to receive maintenance updates.

V5.1A on an ES45 is clearly the easier migration path in the short term.

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

before you give up 5.1B install and try it. It may just work. That a combination is not certified does not mean it does not run.

greetings,

Michael

[Han Pilmeyer]

Yes, good point. Forgot to mention that. Customers have been known to get Oracle 7.3.4.5 to run on V5.1B. Completely unsupported. Of course...

[Biljana Stefanovic]

Hi Han,
thank you for the suggestion to buy es45 if we don't need more than 4CPU. I am wondering why is es45 more expansive than es47; I have used configurator and for the same configuration(4G ran, 2cpu, tower, no external storage) I've got the price of app. $95,000 for es45 model1, and $54,000 for es47. It's not logical, isn't it? I would appreciate an explanation(if there is one)
Thanks,
B.S.
P.S. If we buy es47, naturally I would try 5.1b&7.3.4 on it. I know that although it's not certified it doesn't mean it won't work, but it' better to know if somebody have already tried it. But, thanks for the suggestion anyway.

[Han Pilmeyer]

I make a point of not knowing anything about pricing. Keeps me honest.

The ES47 systems are based on the newer EV7 architecture. These systems have few components are highly reliable as a result and they are easy to expand.

When you compare the systems from price you should probably compare the 2 CPU ES47 system to a the 2 CPU version of the ES45, i.e. the DS25. I expect that the DS25 will be cheaper than the ES45, but it can not later be expanded to an ES45 (unlike the ES47).