Roby Sherman performed an exhaustive study of the speed of Oracle on Linux
and MS-Windows using identical hardware. Sherman currently works for
Qwest Communications in the Data Technologies group of IT Architecture and
Transversal Services, and is a recognized expert in designing, delivering,
tuning, and troubleshooting n-tier systems and technology architecture
components of various size and complexity based on Oracle RDBMS technology.
When you read the full text of the paper, it is clear that Linux has
significant advantages over MS-Windows, not just in performance, but in
flexibility of administration and management.
Sherman concludes “From perspective of performance, RedHat Linux 7.2
demonstrated an average performance advantage of 38.4% higher RDBMS
throughput than a similarly configured Windows 2000 Server in a variety of
operational scenarios. “
Sherman notes “Another point of contention was Window's lack of consistency
between many database administrative functions (automated startup, shutdown,
service creation, scripting, etc.) compared to what DBAs are already used to
in many mainstream UNIX environments (Solaris and HP-UX).”
In my opinion, this is one of the best benchmark studies to-date. It
is objective, through and comprehensive, and shops the relative areas of
Oracle performance on both OS platforms. Even better, this landmark
article show the full spectrum of DBA responsibilities on each platform,
along with a complete description of each.
