[oclug]PostgreSQL Hardware

[Timothy Brier]

Hi,

Hopefully this will clear up some issues, but not all.

The webserver will be using ssl.
The system has been designed to off load as much processing - through
triggers and functions - to the database server.
The system is being tested and optimized for performance on the development
hardware, but this will only indicate some bottlenecks not all.
The hardware is actually the last piece of the puzzle to be implemented, and
thus my concern of what is required for a DB server.  If we stuck with our
current platform, MS windows, I definitely would
have a four processor xeon system in place with a minimum of 6GB of RAM and
fast drives and a caching raid controller.   Having run some test, we have
seen that the Linux OS performs better on less hardware.
We however don't want to just go cheap and have people saying that is not a
good alternative; we know it is a better alternative.  Although I did ask
the question for PostgreSQL, we will also consider using Sybase 12.
We are not inexperienced at designing systems, we have been doing this for
some time.   I do however lack experience in running a large database on a
Linux platform.

Although I can't reveal all the details of a the application, it is an
application that would take the form of a desktop application - HR
management, Accounting, etc.  The number of records to be processed, and the
length of those records will be quite dynamic.   The system will also update
a primary system.

As a side note the cost of doing this on Linux with the current
configuration is approx 20% the cost of developing this system on MS.  The
cost of our "Software Assurance" with the other company, will more than pay
for this application.

I do appreciate all of the feedback and points raised.

Tim.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Tanguay" <ptanguay at magma.ca>
To: <oclug at lists.oclug.on.ca>
Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2002 1:42 PM
Subject: Re: [oclug]PostgreSQL Hardware


> On Sun, 27 Oct 2002, Brad Barnett wrote:
> > "Did that."  "What came first."  I'm glad you agree with me, because
these
> > days the database server can often hit the wall first.  Of course, as
I've
> > said all along, this depends on the circumstances.  It is quite possible
> > to write code on a web server that will hit that bottleneck first.
>
> Well, first off, I don't really want to particpate in the "he said, (s)he
> said" you guys are playing with, but I'll throw this in to the equation :
>
> It seems to me that most often, when I see a web site "slashdotted", the
> pages have lovely "mySql error: could not open connection" or somesuch.
So I
> tend to agree with Brad on this count, usually what seems to fall over
first
> is the DB server.
>
> With that being said, the biggest issue here is that we don't have enough
> data to be able to make an intelligent comments : the way to design a
system
> (and by system, I mean the combination of both the hardware and software)
is
> by designing the application, and THEN picking the hardware and applying
the
> most money to the components that need it most.  In my humble opinion,
> picking out the hardware first is a rookie mistake.   It unfortunately
> happens quite often, because buying hardware and spending money is "fun" :
> analyzing databases schemas and data flow, much less.
>
> But in this situation, with our lack of knowledge of the problem domain,
> we're left to make blanket statements that are at best, sometimes true,
> sometimes not.  Much like I did in the first paragraph of this post. ;>
>
> My 2c, based on 15 years of system and software design experience.  FWIW.
> YMMV. Kids, don't try this at home. :)
>
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