From chuckwilliams1 at home.com  Sun Nov  4 06:40:10 2001
From: chuckwilliams1 at home.com (Chuck Williams)
Date: Wed Aug  4 00:01:18 2004
Subject: More theoretical Database Stuff
Message-ID: <3BE53729.57DEC316@home.com>

I haven't kept up with hardware for years. So my only comment may be
dated. My employer successfully uses
tape for backups but in my previous employments I thought tape was a big
headache.

Just curious since I read a book or two this summer: Why PostgreSQL
rather than MySQL?

Chuck Williams


original message:

Folks:
    I'd like to get your opinions/experiences/references on
something.

   Let's say we're developing a 24/7 multi-user (avg: 5 at
a time, all the time) database for a warehousing project for
a multi-site food company. (GFS, Spartan, whatever.)

  Here's what we're thinking:

- Server:  Linux or Solaris-Running x86's, two of them, each
with dual processors and RAID 5.  Not true clustering, the
2nd one just "mirrors" the first and routinely backs up
transactions to tape.  This costs no downtime.  In the event
of server 1 failure, we switch over to server two, swap some
hard drives around, restore, and re-run.  Operational downtime
of about 3 minutes in the event of  a failure, with general uptime
of, say, 99.9% or so.

  We'd pay the extra $ for the hardware that scales and doesn't
fail, and a tape backup that can run while the database is running.
(Question: Can PostGreSQL and Lunix handle this?  I think we might
need solaris for it's transactioning file system.)

  My thought was that we didn't need the extra "guarentees"
(system mirroring) if we had tape backup and raid 5,
but my partner is a team leader at Meijer and insists that 1 hour
of downtime will most more than just buying an extra system and
mirroring it.  Which begs the questions:

1) Can we do tape backup in Linux in real-time with PostGreSQL and
2) What do you think of the scheme above?

regards,


Matt H.




From matthew_heusser at mcgraw-hill.com  Mon Nov  5 07:07:06 2001
From: matthew_heusser at mcgraw-hill.com (matthew_heusser@mcgraw-hill.com)
Date: Wed Aug  4 00:01:18 2004
Subject: PostGres Vs my
Message-ID: <85256AFB.00484A47.00@corpnj148ls01.mcgraw-hill.com>


If I recall correctly, stored procedures in mySQL JUST Came out
(like, last week), and aren't quite proven enough.  I think postGreSQL
also has more support for embedded programming.

 OH - BTW - We got the paper back - 60 out of 60.
Class average was a 52.77.

  thanks to all who participated,

Matt H.




From joelmeulenberg at yahoo.com  Mon Nov  5 12:20:55 2001
From: joelmeulenberg at yahoo.com (Joel Meulenberg)
Date: Wed Aug  4 00:01:18 2004
Subject: PostGres Vs my
In-Reply-To: <85256AFB.00484A47.00@corpnj148ls01.mcgraw-hill.com>
Message-ID: <20011105182055.46171.qmail@web13007.mail.yahoo.com>

Speaking of open source database management systems, over the weekend I
ran into a guy I worked with for several years (1990-1993).  I asked
him what he'd been up to lately.  Amongst several other things, he
mentioned that he'd done the open source port of Interbase to AIX
(IBM's Unix).

His assessment of the folks working on Interbase was that they are very
bright (one guy he even described as a "genius"), but they really lack
coordination and organization, and the project suffers a lot because of it.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Find a job, post your resume.
http://careers.yahoo.com