Re: Which SQL is the best for servers?

On Feb 15, 10:09 pm, pg <pen(dot)(dot)(dot)(at)catholic(dot)org> wrote:
> I am involved with a SQL server project. The server would be used in a
> very heavy duty environment, with hundreds of thousands, if not
> millions of database enquiries per minutes.
>
> The server would run Linux or one of the BSD variant, with at least
> 32GB of RAM. We are not very certain of the hardware specs yet because
> we haven't decided on which SQL to use.
>
> I know that Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL are all designed for heavy
> duty uses.
>
> And I checked all available online resources for a SQL comparison and
> all I could find is some articles dated 2005 or so !
>
> So, here's my questions:
>
> 1. Are there any recent SQL comparison article available?
>
> 2. Since the server may come with only 32GB of RAM, which SQL can run
> the "leanest" - that is, not a memory hog?
>
> 3. The server might also become a web-server, which SQL can tie itself
> to the Web-based enquiry they best?
>
> Please give me your suggestion / opinion. Thank you !!

I agree with those who say you are going about this backwards. No-way
no-how will a single open source os box handle millions of
"enquiries" per minute.

Sounds to me like someone has an idea for some web page they think is
going to attract a gazillion users. This is what I predict: You will
spend $5 million over several years financed via a shoot-the-moon
business plan designed to attract venture capital. At the end, it
will all fizzle out after numerous rounds of layoffs.

It wouldn't be the first time. Good luck in this economic
environment. That's as good a prediction as any given this amount of
information. Unless the domain you are posting from indicates some
religious thing. Some religious databases use Oracle.

As to the database engine: There is a reason I'm strongly biased
towards Oracle. That reason being, unless there is something special
about the processing involved, either exceedingly simple, complex or
specialized, it is near impossible to build a bespoke system cheaper
than buy and modify off the shelf software. For business systems,
ACID is a very important consideration, and Oracle simply handles the
concurrency issues better for most business processes. Google, for a
big example, doesn't care about concurrency issues, because their
business model is simply to approximate eyeballing of ads - and they
don't have to account for how they measure it. This happens to be
evil.

In general, it takes about an order of magnitude more people to write
and maintain a custom system than implement an off the shelf system.
Given the cost of a large implementation this can make sense for open
source - or not. The maintenance costs are often underestimated
either way, but moreso in customization. When a startup starts to
transition to a business, variable costs are cut. That would be
you.

Two guys and a box? I've seen that work, where a huge classical
development failed - more than once. It depends. Most startups fail.

Check out Oracle XE and apex. No cost to you, and you can pay to
scale as appropriate.

jg
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