What Are the Differences Between Itanium and x86

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Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users What Are the Differences Between Itanium and x86_64 CPUs? Post 302246868 by deckard on Tuesday 14th of October 2008 03:06:27 PM

10-14-2008

Registered User

What Are the Differences Between Itanium and x86_64 CPUs?

This is definitely a "stupid" question, but I can't think of anywhere else to ask it, so here goes. My knowledge of CPU history on big iron machines starts with the last DEC Alphas, a short stint with Sun servers, PA-RISC and Itanium, Intel 486s on the desktop before that, and Motorola 68000 CPUs on the desktop before that. This reflect my move from "toy" Atari ST, Macs and Amigas, to Windows 3.1 and then Linux at home and finally exposure to OpenVMS, Solaris and HP-UX at work.

Having been able to work with larger systems that get moderate to heavy use, I am now wondering whether or not it would be prudent to migrate some of our Oracle servers away from HP-UX on Itanium to some form of Linux on x86_64. My manager and our vendor both claim that Linux on x86_64 would never be able to handle the load, but I'm also aware that they don't really know much about that world to begin with. Admittedly, our current Oracle server on Itanium (a four year old system now) recently had some trouble keeping up with requests from the application server. Some of that was due to some default kernel parameters that were not changed. However, I've been really wondering now, whether or not the costs of keeping Oracle on HP-UX are warranted.

I understand their perspective that we're a big HP shop and have a relationship with support people and the like that would take years to build with anyone else if ever. But I think their fears might be unwarranted in that we might have a few more people on staff here who would be able to help with the upkeep of Linux boxes instead of HP-UX. But that is another matter... My core question is: Can an x86_64 box running something like RedHat Enterprise Linux with Oracle perform just as well as an Itanium running HP-UX with Oracle or is there some really gigantic difference? Right now we're looking at spending nearly $50,000 on a new server for Oracle, and I think with about $15,000 we could have a well equipped HP Xeon box with multiple cores and CPUs and just as much RAM. Am I all wet? Ignorant of some important issues (I admit my knowledge is lacking)?

deckard

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LEARN ABOUT PHP

oci_set_module_name

OCI_SET_MODULE_NAME(3)													    OCI_SET_MODULE_NAME(3)

oci_set_module_name - Sets the module name

SYNOPSIS

       bool oci_set_module_name (resource  $connection, string	$module_name)

DESCRIPTION

	Sets the module name for Oracle tracing.

	The module name is registered with the database when the next 'roundtrip' from PHP to the database occurs, typically when an SQL statement
       is executed.

	The name can subsequently be queried from database administration views such as V$SESSION. It can be used for tracing and monitoring  such
       as with V$SQLAREA and DBMS_MONITOR.SERV_MOD_ACT_STAT_ENABLE.

	The value may be retained across persistent connections.

PARAMETERS

	      o $connection
		-An Oracle connection identifier, returned by oci_connect(3), oci_pconnect(3), or oci_new_connect(3).

	      o $module_name
		- User chosen string up to 48 bytes long.

RETURN VALUES

	Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

NOTES

       Note

	      Oracle version requirement

	      This function is available when PHP is linked with Oracle Database libraries from version 10 g onwards.

       Tip

	      Performance

	      With  older  versions of OCI8 or the Oracle Database, the client information can be set using the Oracle DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO pack-
	      age. This is less efficient than using oci_set_client_info(3).

       Caution

	      Roundtrip Gotcha

	      Some but not all OCI8 functions cause roundtrips. Roundtrips to the database may not occur  with	queries  when  result  caching	is
	      enabled.

EXAMPLES

       Example #1

	      Setting the module name

	      <?php

	      $c = oci_connect('hr', 'welcome', 'localhost/XE');

	      // Record the module
	      oci_set_module_name($c, 'Home Page');

	      // Code that causes a roundtrip, for example a query:
	      $s = oci_parse($c, 'select * from dual');
	      oci_execute($s);
	      oci_fetch_all($s, $res);

	      sleep(30);
	      ?>

	      // While the script is running, the administrator can see the
	      // modules in use:

	      sqlplus system/welcome
	      SQL> select module from v$session;

SEE ALSO

       oci_set_action(3), oci_set_client_info(3), oci_set_client_identifier(3).

PHP Documentation Group 												    OCI_SET_MODULE_NAME(3)

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