Re: [vox] PostgreSQL vs. Oracle

[Don Werve <donw@examen.cMAPSom>]

On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 03:42:51PM -0800, Eric Engelhard wrote:
> > I'd say that would be an accurate assesment, only because PG doesn't have
> > any way of dealing with raw disks (tell me if I'm wrong on this one, as
> > I'd love to be); and you can't beat the performance kick that comes from
> > not having to deal with the filesystem layer by using raw I/O.
> 
> I asked a competent db guy about this and he said that although Oracle
> has this capability, most are not configured in this way. Is this an
> unnecessary burden for a smaller db?

Probably just laziness; most DBAs and sysadmins don't bother optimizing 
their equipment because it takes time; I've found that working the extra hour
to do things right from the get-go saves a slave-labor weekend later.

> > Then again, anyone considering a large database on Intel hardware is insane;
> > there's a reason why big databases run on big iron.  Let's see an Intel
> > machine hold 128 processors, talk to ten seperate fibre channel arrays, and
> > dynamically re-assign CPUs, memory, and I/O from a serial port.  Oh, and
> > we can't forget the ability to hot-swap almost every component on the
> > machine with zero downtime.  That's why people like Sun, IBM, and HP are
> > still in business.
> 
> ... and yet Oracle intends on replacing big iron with clustered Lintel.
> I wonder if big iron can really compete with multiple Linux boxes and a
> NetAp in the background. It does create another layer to optimize, but
> how many coders can you hire for the difference in cost?

Don't ask me about that one; I think Oracle is making a VERY bad move, both 
for themselves (Oracle *will* lose users on this one).

> > But otherwise, I like Postgres, and I don't care too much for Oracle.  From
> > a coder's point of view, Oracle does have some neat features that aren't
> > present in Postgres; but, at the same time, it's nothing that can't be
> > easily implemented in the DB-interface layer of an application, and for the
> > savings of not using Oracle...
> 
> I like postgres and have never used Oracle, so I really appreciate your
> comments.

Actually, I need to take back some of that; I haven't looked at PostgreSQL 
since before 7.1; and I plan on implementing 7.1 for my personal DB server 
sometime later this week.  Stored procedures, improved locking, finally got
rid of that 8K limit and made the number of concurrent connections command-
line switchable.  Pretty much the only thing Oracle offers now is really 
killer support and more real-world experience in the Big Iron world.

-- 
Don Werve <donw@examen.com>
Unix System Administrator

Plus je vois les hommes, plus j'admire les chiens.
_______________________________________________
vox mailing list
vox@lists.lugod.org
http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox