Have you moved from Unix/Oracle to Windows/SQL Server

[Former Member]

I am looking for people that have moved from Unix/Oracle to Windows/SQL Server...

Would you do it again ?

Did you save money ?

Were you using Zones to virutalize on Unix ?

Did you gain or loose overall Performance ?

Have you had to perform a recovery on SQL Server ?

Have you done a recovery in Oracle ?

Were you using Rman ?

Which worked better ?

We are going through an analysis of does it really make sense, save money and effect performance to move from a strong unix/oracle environment to a MS/SQL environment.

THanks Rob

Rob_Evelyn@b-f.com

[markus_doehr2]

Those type of questions can´t be answered that easily. You can get the system up and running on any of the supported operating system and database combinations. The questions is: what are you skills? If you´re a Unix using company and you have the appropriate knowledge I´d stick with that. I may appear that "Windows is easier" than Unix - but in fact, it´s as complicated and also has glitches and problems as any other operating system.

I assume you´re talking about Solaris (Unix is a generic term, can be Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, IRIX...) when you talk about zones. We make use of zones (and ZFS) heavily and it works like a charm. We use "cheap" hardware (Opteron based multicore systems) and Solaris as operating system to virtualize the zoo of software.

What is your motivation to move? Maybe if you tell us this, one can answer those questions more easily.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi,

WE are using Solaris for all our SAP instances and have been using Zones. Our CIO keep brining this Windows vs Unix and Oracle vs SQL server question up. At the last conference, another CIO mentioned that he saved 40% in operating costs by switching from Unix to Windows and SQL server to Oracle.

I have done the math but can't seem to find these types of savings ?

Rob

[markus_doehr2]

Well - you should ask him, where he saved this data. It´s always a question of where you put the focus. If you´re a Unix company and everyone needs to learn to work with Windows (and yes, Windows IS different) it´s really a question, where all those savings come from.

If you use Solaris on SPARC, the hardware is much more expensive than Intel or Opteron processors - and those processors are much faster. It depends on what you compare exactly. A 4-way SPARC box is cetainly more expensive than a 4-way Opteron machine.

On top of that, the maintenance of Oracle is very expensive compared to other databases. Depending on the price list used for your contract you pay the double amount of maintenance for one SAP user if you use Oracle instead of using Microsoft SQL server. If you calculate all this, is may be cheaper. The question is, if people are able to deal with it as they do with their Unix machines.

Markus

[Former Member]

We moved from a Windows/Oracle environment to Windows/SQL 4 years ago.

The biggest difference is maintenance windows went down dramatically (from 32-hour reorgs every month, to no reorgs and just reboots once per month) and the management tools on the SQL side are much more user-friendly, in my opinion.

Would you do it again ? YES

Did you save money ? YES (SQL licensing was much cheaper)

Did you gain or loose overall Performance ? About the same

Have you had to perform a recovery on SQL Server ? Yes, and it is almost seemless in comparison to Oracle

Have you done a recovery in Oracle ? Yes, and it was always very difficult with control files, etc

Were you using Rman ? No.

Which worked better ? SQL native tools

[Former Member]

Did you do the whole migration yourself or did SAP come in and do it for you?

What versions were you on?

Did SAP move your licenses or did you have to license SQL yourself?

How large was your database?

We are considering this as well and have an opportunity with new hardware coming in.

Joy

[markus_doehr2]

> Did you do the whole migration yourself or did SAP come in and do it for you?

If you migrate production systems you MUST have SAP in place (or a certified migration consultant) - see http://service.sap.com/osdbmigration

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi,

We have not performed the migration yet. The question of SAP licenses - you are right - we would have to change our licensing with SAP (Which is not cheap).

I am really interested to see if any is "glad" they migrated. Was there any benefit - Did performance change etc.

[Former Member]

Good point....We feel like we could spend less on the db and would like evidence supporting that it is a not a disastrous move.

Joy

[Former Member]

Hi dear gurus,

Very interesting discussion! I'm interested in moving BW-system from Solaris/Oracle to Win/SQL-server

Did you come up with any pros and cons regarding BW in particular - performance issues, maintenance, partitioning, etc?

Thanks in advance,

Best regards, Elena

[Former Member]

Hi,

All our R/3 legacy systems are Windows/Oracle.

All the new systems (BW, SRM, CRM, XI) are Windows/MSSQL.

It was an order from the management to make the switch because of the high prices of Oracle licences.

The official motto is now Oracle on Unix only and SQL server on Windows only.

We get the same level of performance as with Oracle, but we, old SAP Oracle grumpy admins, are much more comfortable with Oracle admin than SQL server admin.

imho, SQL server may seem simplier but it is much easier to look under the hood whith Oracle.

We have to reinvent the wheel and it's kind of frustrating but we will cope with it...

I would say that SQL server is not a good choice for BW usage because there is a lot more litterature on BW database optimisation for Oracle than MSSQL.

The official SAP class does not speak at all about SQL server but has several chapters on Oracle...

Regards,

Olivier

[markus_doehr2]

Interesting statements...

Any idea why the management didn't look into SAPDB/MaxDB? It's even "cheaper" in sense of license and maintenance... just curious

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

Very easy question !

From the management point of view :

Very Expensive is bad. (Oracle)

Free is evil : Who do you blame (or sue) when things get dirty ?

One of the argument that made me laugh was to choose Microsoft to fight against the Oracle monopoly.

That said, we get a very good support from Microsoft folks and they have very knowledgeable people on the specific use of MSSQL with SAP products.

Regards,

Olivier

[bertvanstechelman]

Hello Markus,

I was involved in several OS/DB Migrations from whatever (OS400/DB2, ORACLE/UNIX ...) to SQL-Server.

Must customers run 24x7. One database is 2TB.

Windows 2003 / SQL 2005 (64 bit) are very stable. If you use your Windows environment with the same caution as if it would be your Unix / Oracle environment, you should be fine.

If you start deploying all sorts of "non-critical-not-really-needed" applications on it it will become a mess.

Cheers

Bert