Develop on Windows, deliver to Unix

[whygnat]

Sorry if this has been addressed but I have searched this and other forums quite a bit to no avail.

Has anyone had any compatibility problems with developing for a Windows server and delivering to a Unix one? Our customer is using Unix/Solaris as their Oracle server and Windows for clients. We have kept up a Solaris box to mirror their site but it's getting cost prohibitive. We want to develop on just Windows machines (server and clients) and deliver to their setup.

Our setup is: Oracle 10g with clients connecting through both OCCI and JDBC's thin client. There are calls to a handful of procedures, sequences, and many tables but most calls are straight out of SQL: Select, Insert, Update, and Delete.

I've heard that character sets can cause conflicts but the data itself is not being delivered and all information is inserted during installation. We do not export our developed version and import to the customer. We create the tables, insert lookup data, and process data at their site to fill the database so I don't believe it is a migration question. (of which I have read many threads)

Thanks for any insights or pitfalls.

[davey23uk]

you need to test on your target platform, how else do you know it will work?

[whygnat]

It currently works but we continue to develop new functionality. I'm asking if anyone has had any problems with such a set up in the past that we should look out for and/or avoid. Connection differences, the way procedures are handled, sysdate, anything like that.

Developing the software, we don't need the benefits of a Solaris machine (speed, storage, etc) at the cost of keeping up the system. But before we drop it, we want to be aware of any pitfalls and compatibility problems.

Thanks

[LKBrwn_DBA]

As long as you use scripts to create schema objects (or changes) and move the data by using insert statements, everything should work fine.

...And maintain the development software 100% compatible with the customer's software.

PS: Besides, I do not think your customer would allow you to move changes directly to
production without first going to test and QA, and therefore provide you with a testing platform.

[whygnat]

We have to maintain our own testing platform. We can do an iteration of testing on their system but it's a very closed system and difficult to debug on. I believe it will be fine but some in the development team think we could come across some type of connection differences or methods that may not work on the same on both servers in the future.

Thanks for the input!

[PAVB]

So we go back to Dave's answer, you got it within the hour. Is that a great SLA or what?

[citldba]

I have done this before. You can build and test on Windows, but you must then do some level of testing on the target platform at the client before you install as you must be sure that there are no nasties that will catch you out. As the others say, I would have thought the client would have had their own environment for acceptance testing anyhow

[davey23uk]

all crazy - build and test on your target environment is the only good method

[citldba]

I agree that is ideal, but sometimes costs and praticalities don't allow it

[davey23uk]

then reap the consequences of it