Re: does postgresql works on distributed systems?

Roberts, Jon wrote:
>> He's talking about having the raw database files on a file server (eg
>> SMB share). DB's like firebird and sqlite can handle this way of
>> accessing the data using the embedded engines.
>
> Active-active, multiple server databases are either a shared nothing or
> a shared disk system. Oracle, for instance is a shared disk system
> where multiple database instances can connect to the same underlying
> disk.

I'm not sure the point you are making. We have all our Oracle databases
stored on a NetApp, so I think this is the kind of configuration you are
discussing. However, each Oracle instance on a single server completely
owns the files on the NetApp related to that instance. All Oracle
instances on all servers share the same NetApp, but that's because it's
just a big file server. In the event of a DB server failure, we can
bring up the same instance on a backup DB server, but then *it*
completely owns all files related to that instance. Only one instance
can be accessing the files related to that instance at any point in time.

The same could be done with PostgreSQL. As I said, the NetApp is just a
fileserver.

--
Guy Rouillier