HP has been running a special on the Oracle7 Server database management system, offering 25 percent off the price per seat to companies that haven't ever installed the relational database. While a large majority of HP 3000s operate their mission-critical applications using HP's own IMAGE/SQL or TurboIMAGE, more sites are considering implementing Oracle as a way to get additional applications in play on HP 3000s.
For many of these sites, the barrier to implementing Oracle has been three-fold. First, they have data in IMAGE databases with no straightforward way to move it to Oracle's format. Secondly, site managers report they have experienced higher management demands with Oracle on other platforms. Finally, the price barrier for purchasing a second HP 3000 database has kept sites from adding Oracle to the data management mix.
HP's offer, which expires at the end of October, eliminates a portion of the last hurdle. HP is offering Oracle's 7.2.3 version to 3000 sites at prices that start at under $1,200 per seat with an eight-seat minimum. Purchasing Oracle for an HP 3000 for under $10,000 hasn't been possible before. The price per seat increases based on HP's CPU tiers -- the under-$1,200 price is available only for the lowest HP 3000 tier.
The HP pricing doesn't alleviate the roadblocks of data migration and increased management demands. But Taurus Software's Forklift migration tool, which uses a graphical interface to map IMAGE datasets to Oracle tables by way of the Taurus Warehouse utility, promises to move data as easily as any existing tool on other platforms. (See related story this issue). Forklift gives managers a visual aid to get data into Oracle databases.
The data management curve still must be navigated, but several companies provide Oracle management aids designed for HP 3000s. Bradmark Technologies' has a DBGeneral Performance Monitor product that runs on a Windows NT or 95 client and can keep track of the Oracle database on the HP 3000. The $2,995(for a 64-user system) Performance Monitor lets DBAs administer Oracle databases from a graphic console, so you can track real-time performance statistics and set alarms and alerts on thresholds.
Performance management might be more essential with HP 3000 sites working with Oracle for the first time. The database isn't as tightly integrated with MPE as IMAGE, so its transaction processing power will probably lag behind the marks that TurboIMAGE posts. But integration experts say Oracle runs faster on the HP 3000 than on the HP 9000. The staff at Taurus says that searches and joins which are common to decision support tasks execute faster under Oracle than under IMAGE/SQL.
Applications available
Those two words above have been harder to associate with the HP 3000 over
the past few years, as companies continue to press their systems into
service for new business needs. Implementing Oracle on the HP 3000 gives
sites a path to the stable of Oracle-written applications for the HP 3000,
another way to let companies continue to host programs natively under
MPE.
Oracle has lined up Internet Commerce, an EDI gateway, financials for government sites and others, human resources, project control, manufacturing and data warehouse applications in its stable of programs. The 10.6.1 version of these hit the 3000 market this month. The latest wrinkle in the Oracle application saga is the use of "smart clients," which balance the logic an application needs between clients and the HP 3000. SmartClient is supposed to keep network traffic down while your clients remain completely responsive.
HP has put a lot of its own engineering resource into making Oracle available for the HP 3000. Desktop integration specialists like Birket Foster of M.B. Foster Associates believe that the availability of Oracle on the 3000 is one of the best gateways to future MPE-hosted applications.