I posted a month or so ago asking if anyone knew about
the status of Oracle Standard Edition for VMS. Metalink
says that Oracle 10gR2 Standard edition is "not planned"
for VMS on any platform (VAX, Alpha or Itanium). Of course
it also says that 9.2 Standard Edition was not released
for those platforms (which is patently false).

I've now had it confirmed by my Oracle rep that Oracle does
not plan to release any further versions of Oracle Standard
Edition for VMS. The argument is presumably that it's too
much work to test it and there's not enough interest. I
can't speak for any other sites but I know it's a "mission
critical" product for us.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but my experience is that
unless you're running huge databases where things like
partitioning become critical there's not much need to
use Enterprise Edition and that not having Standard
edition available for VMS eliminates the feasibility of
being able to use this rock-solid OS as an Oracle server
platform unless you have very deep pockets.

I've been told that the decision to kill Standard Edition
for VMS is "not final". I would encourage anyone out there
who uses, or has any interest in using, Standard Edition
on VMS to contact your Oracle rep and let them know you'd
like the product to continue. If you know anyone else
who uses this product please let them know too. Surely I
can't be the only customer on the planet, can I?

Malcolm Dunnett wrote:

> I've now had it confirmed by my Oracle rep that Oracle does
> not plan to release any further versions of Oracle Standard
> Edition for VMS. The argument is presumably that it's too
> much work to test it and there's not enough interest. I
> can't speak for any other sites but I know it's a "mission
> critical" product for us.

I would argue that Standard Edition is not mission critical for
you as you can always substitute Enterprise Edition. What may
matter is the cost of the license. And here is where you need
to invite back that lovely sales rep and ask them how hard they
can work, between now and license renewal time, to get that EE
license to match the cost of the SE license.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org

On 22 Aug 2006 21:08:06 -0700, nothome@spammers.are.scum (Malcolm
Dunnett) wrote:

>I've been told that the decision to kill Standard Edition
>for VMS is "not final". I would encourage anyone out there
>who uses, or has any interest in using, Standard Edition
>on VMS to contact your Oracle rep and let them know you'd
>like the product to continue. If you know anyone else
>who uses this product please let them know too. Surely I
>can't be the only customer on the planet, can I?

I wouldn't be surprised is OpenVMS is going to be a desupported
platform soon. If you realize how many options are simply not
available for OpenVMS, and how kludgy Oracle implemented and
documented OFA, you realize you would better change O/S, if you want
to continue Oracle.
The number of customers on the planet might number less than 10.

--
Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA

In article <1156309756.359226@bubbleator.drizzle.com>,
DA Morgan <damorgan@psoug.org> writes:
>
> I would argue that Standard Edition is not mission critical for
> you as you can always substitute Enterprise Edition. What may
> matter is the cost of the license. And here is where you need
> to invite back that lovely sales rep and ask them how hard they
> can work, between now and license renewal time, to get that EE
> license to match the cost of the SE license.

I'm investigating that angle. Perhaps something can
be worked out but there'd still be the ongoing software support
costs to be considered, ie what will the cost delta be over
the next 5 or 10 years?

The other option is to get a linux box and move the SE licenses
to it. Of course neither of these solutions is as good as convincing
Oracle to keep offering SE on VMS.

Sybrand Bakker wrote:
>
> I wouldn't be surprised is OpenVMS is going to be a desupported
> platform soon. If you realize how many options are simply not
> available for OpenVMS, and how kludgy Oracle implemented and
> documented OFA, you realize you would better change O/S, if you want
> to continue Oracle.
> The number of customers on the planet might number less than 10.
>
> --
> Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA

what a lie! OpenVMS will be around for a LONG LONG time ... that is
straight from the high ups at HP ... better yet, DUMP ORACLE!

Either they want sales, or they do not ... move to RDB! It is a much
better DB anyway ...

Malcolm Dunnett wrote:
> In article <1156309756.359226@bubbleator.drizzle.com>,
> DA Morgan <damorgan@psoug.org> writes:
>> I would argue that Standard Edition is not mission critical for
>> you as you can always substitute Enterprise Edition. What may
>> matter is the cost of the license. And here is where you need
>> to invite back that lovely sales rep and ask them how hard they
>> can work, between now and license renewal time, to get that EE
>> license to match the cost of the SE license.
>
> I'm investigating that angle. Perhaps something can
> be worked out but there'd still be the ongoing software support
> costs to be considered, ie what will the cost delta be over
> the next 5 or 10 years?
>
> The other option is to get a linux box and move the SE licenses
> to it. Of course neither of these solutions is as good as convincing
> Oracle to keep offering SE on VMS.
>

Your problem is that you consider yourself locked into using Oracle.
They know that you can run on Linux, probably cheaper than running on
VMS, and that this will continue to appeal to you and they'll keep you
as a customer. They don't give a damn about your desire to continue to
run VMS. You need a non-Oracle option to possibly get their attention.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

bob@instantwhip.com wrote:
> Sybrand Bakker wrote:
>> I wouldn't be surprised is OpenVMS is going to be a desupported
>> platform soon. If you realize how many options are simply not
>> available for OpenVMS, and how kludgy Oracle implemented and
>> documented OFA, you realize you would better change O/S, if you want
>> to continue Oracle.
>> The number of customers on the planet might number less than 10.
>>
>> --
>> Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA
>
> what a lie! OpenVMS will be around for a LONG LONG time ... that is
> straight from the high ups at HP ... better yet, DUMP ORACLE!
>
> Either they want sales, or they do not ... move to RDB! It is a much
> better DB anyway ...
>

In what manner is this suggestion 'dumping Oracle'? The money still
goes into Larry's jet.

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

Sybrand Bakker wrote:
> On 22 Aug 2006 21:08:06 -0700, nothome@spammers.are.scum (Malcolm
> Dunnett) wrote:
>
> >I've been told that the decision to kill Standard Edition
> >for VMS is "not final". I would encourage anyone out there
> >who uses, or has any interest in using, Standard Edition
> >on VMS to contact your Oracle rep and let them know you'd
> >like the product to continue. If you know anyone else
> >who uses this product please let them know too. Surely I
> >can't be the only customer on the planet, can I?
>
> I wouldn't be surprised is OpenVMS is going to be a desupported
> platform soon. If you realize how many options are simply not
> available for OpenVMS, and how kludgy Oracle implemented and
> documented OFA, you realize you would better change O/S, if you want
> to continue Oracle.
> The number of customers on the planet might number less than 10.
>

Suppliers, are market driven. No market; no product (unless someone is
willing to pay the premium).

I wonder what most Sybase customers did? Did they keep VMS and move
data over to (something else)? Keep Sybase and leave VMS? How many kept
VMS and moved to Oracle? How many times will a customer get burned ---
incurring major conversion costs because of OpenVMS --- before moving
to a more reliable supplier.

The BIG customers make the most noise and carry the most weight. They
have the big budget and are often willing to pay a premium. Funny thing
about most customers though (especially BIG customers); they're always
one management change away from turning around and leaving their
"loyal" suppliers flat.

Malcolm Dunnett wrote:
> In article <1156309756.359226@bubbleator.drizzle.com>,
> DA Morgan <damorgan@psoug.org> writes:
>> I would argue that Standard Edition is not mission critical for
>> you as you can always substitute Enterprise Edition. What may
>> matter is the cost of the license. And here is where you need
>> to invite back that lovely sales rep and ask them how hard they
>> can work, between now and license renewal time, to get that EE
>> license to match the cost of the SE license.
>
> I'm investigating that angle. Perhaps something can
> be worked out but there'd still be the ongoing software support
> costs to be considered, ie what will the cost delta be over
> the next 5 or 10 years?

A lot less than changing vendors and, once again, very negotiable.
Invite the sales rep. to save his client from going to the dark
side.

> The other option is to get a linux box and move the SE licenses
> to it. Of course neither of these solutions is as good as convincing
> Oracle to keep offering SE on VMS.

Personally I'd move to Linux as fast as I could. Consider the
tremendous financial savings for support as well as the fact
that patches will show up far faster.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org

DA Morgan wrote:
> Personally I'd move to Linux as fast as I could. Consider the
> tremendous financial savings for support as well as the fact
> that patches will show up far faster.


If VMS management do not do something to keep Oracle on VMS and in fact
grow its presence on VMS, I think it may in fact signal the true end of
VMS. It will send a strong signal.

Remember that there is that suppposed 10 billion buck fund to help port
software. If HP isn't going to use any of it to help VMS, then it also
sends quite a strong signal about HP's intentions with reagrds to VMS.
With that 10 billion fund, you'd think tyhey would have already givenm a
big grant to Tom Linden to port PL1 to VMS-IA64 already.