Question:

> I'm in the process of migrating from Oracle 7.3.4 to either 8.0.6 or
> 8.1.6 on AIX 4.3.2.
> Can anyone tell me some pro's and cons of each (performance, stability,
> etc...). We have a vendor app which I can't go beyond 8.0.6 on one box
> but my other boxes just have home grown applications. Management wants
> all of the boxes to be on the same release but just sounds like an
> extra step to me.
> Each instance is between 30 & 60 Gig using Parallel Query but not
> Parallel Server. 200 - 300 Concurrent Users.
> Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
> Thanks in advance...
> Steve

Answer:

The most important question is whether 8.0 and 8i will remain two separate
productlines.
I have serious doubts about this, but I can't answer this question.
If I need to advice customers I take into account
- do they really need the Internet functionality (sounds like you don't)
- how are their inhouse DBA-skills. If they have difficulty to keep up with
7.3.4, I advise them to upgrade to 8.0 and to postpone 8i.
Oracle 8i has undergone tremendous changes, the upgrade course from 7.3 to
8.0 was three days and the upgrade course from 8.0 to 8i was projected as
again 3 days.
The instructor on the former course said Oracle 8.0 was internally also
known as 7.4.
In a recent post someone reported benchmarks: Oracle 8.1.5 was three times
slower as 8.0.5 and Oracle 8.1.6 two times slower as 8.0.5.
Try to get confirmation from Oracle on their future plans and decide at that
stage, possibly taking into account my advice.

Regards,

Sybrand Bakker, Oracle DBA