Preferred Operating System and Database Version

I know it is unlikely that a vendor will want to state a preferred OS/DB engine, but is there any feeling what is best for performance and maintenance? I am about to set up a new system and because of the size of it, we have decided to go 64 bit. Now the choice is Windows Server 2003 or RH Linux 5, probably with Oracle 10gR2. Would version 11g of Oracle be more sensible? Will Windows or RH Linux be the best in terms of performance, reliablity and maintenance?

From a JChem Cartridge perspective:

11gR1 is in some cases faster than 10gR2, but is less mature and may be less stable. The JVM in 11gR1 is significantly faster, but we haven't yet performed any targeted tests to compare the two versions, so I cannot tell for sure how (if at all) this improvement is reflected in the performance of JChem Cartridge. Concerning stability: we discovered one bug significantly affecting JChem Cartridge in 11gR1 which Oracle fixed in due course. Overall, I'd personally stick with 10gR2 until 11gR2 comes out and gets stabilized.

I don't think there is much difference between Windows and Linux in either of the three aspects you are considering. At least nothing JChem Cartridge specific. Oracle's main development platfrom is currently Linux which gives some theoretical edge in stability to Linux, but I don't think JChem Cartridge is significantly more stable on Linux than on Windows as a result. (I know of one Oracle bug in Oracle 9.2 for Windows significantly affecting JChem Cartridge which Oracle fixed only in 10g and which we worked around starting with JChem 5.0.)  The same is true for performance and maintenance: the pros and cons apply you would consider in general between the two OS.

(To be entirely accurate: while many of our users have JChem Cartridge installations running on Windows, the large JChem Cartridge installations appear to be running mostly on Linux. This means that the sources of the information on which we can base our conjectures about the issues you're inquiry is concerned with is not evenly distributed across the range of potential usage patterns. In simple terms: "who knows, there may be stability problems on Windows, which we don't know about, just because none has ever run into them yet".)

Peter

pkovacs wrote:

Overall, I'd personally stick with 10gR2 until 11gR2 comes out and gets stabilized.

Dear Peter,

 

can I ask you about the current status of the 11gR2 valildation process?

 

Regards,

Mark

Dear Mark,

We tested JChem Cartridge with Oracle 11gR2 and we found it stable enough for production use.

Regards,

Peter