[Info-vax] VSI working on alternatives to Oracle Classic database

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/20/2021 8:39 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2021-01-20 kl. 14:13, skrev Simon Clubley:
>> VSI have sent out an announcement via email about alternative options
>> they are working on now that Oracle Classic (including the client) has
>> been discontinued for VMS.
>>
>> It's not on their website yet, so I don't know if it is ok to post it
>> but it talks about various alternatives, some VMS based and some Linux
>> based and various connection options.
>>
>> I mention it in case someone is looking for Oracle Classic alternatives,
>> and have not received the email, so they can contact VSI to ask for
>> further information.
> 
> I replied on that directly to VSI yesterday asking why moving/porting to
> Rdb was not one of the bulleted options. Rdb has some optional definitions
> and functions that can be installed to an Rdb database to make it look more
> like an Oracle Classic database. And there is an OCI interface.
> 
> But then, if you have large amounts of PL/SQL routines, porting to
> anything might be a challange...

For those that just need *a* relational database, then there
are plenty of alternatives for VMS.

I know of: Rdb, MySQL/MariaDB, Mimer, SQLite, HSQLDB, Derby, H2.

It seems weird that that don't mention Rdb. Of the above list then
it is really the most high end and therefore the most logical
replacement for Oracle DB (Oracle Classic in traditional VMS
terminology). SQLite is a cool database, but I see it more as
replacement for RMS index-sequential files.

For those that depends heavily on Oracle stored procedures
(PL/SQL - as I don't believe the VMS version of the database
ever supported stored procedures in Java), then it is
a totally different situation. They are probably better
of migrating to Oracle DB on Linux.

But then they need the client lib to stay on VMS
(unless they happen to use a JVM language that can use
thin JDBC driver, but that is probably a tiny fraction
of uses).

VSI really should convince Oracle to keep supporting the
client lib including supporting it on VMS x86-64.

I don't think there are many good alternatives as
most third party libs are build on top of OCI.

Arne