Re: Any Plans for cross database queries on the same server?

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Mark Walker wrote:
>
> I don't know. My customers expect 24/7 reliability. They expect to be
> able to access their info anywhere in the world over a variety of
> different devices. I can remember times when people would just go home
> because computer networks were down. I haven't seen that happen in a
> long time.

...Back in 1986, Cheryl Healy and I took on running Polaroid's corporate
systems "24 X 7" - and we worked hard to make it "24 X 7 X 365.24".
Shortly thereafter - while still working with Cheryl, Angel Vila, Chris
Boerner and I took on running Bellcore's 800 telephone network full time
also - our success was measured how few minutes/seconds there was any lost
business at all on an annual basis. (Bellcore was previously known as AT&T
Bell Laboratories.) If you made an 800 number based call from '86 to '89,
the systems I managed for Bellcore helped place that call. ... I could go
on. I've worked in the "always up" community a long time now and have
worked with/for more corporations in this capacity than nearly anyone you
might find - mostly very large, well known companies.

My observation is that we have a real shortage of quality operating
systems today, and what few exist/remain don't enjoy much market share
because they're not based on Unix, so they're largely missing out on the
Open Source activity. What may be worse, young people who don't know any
better are sometimes told/taught not to bother with anything over five
years old as it's antiquated so they don't ever find out that things could
be better - and once were. (Example, anyone who thinks "man pages" are
great has obviously got a very limited experience from which to base their
opinion!) ... As a practical matter today we mostly have a choice of
Windows or some flavor of unix, neither of which are great. That would be
very different in my opinion if only Unix didn't have this asenine view
that the choice between a memory management strategy that kills random
processes and turning that off and accepting that your system hangs is a
reasonable choice and that spending a measily % of performance in overhead
to eliminate the problem is out of the question. Asenine, I tell you.

Meanwhile, what Operating Systems ARE _today_ reliable choices upon which
to run your Postgres datababse engine?

...BTW, McDonalds in Paris?! -smile- Just make sure you order Freedom
Fries!

Richard

>
> Maybe that's just my experience with my customers. I have seen signs of
> dysfunctional computer systems lately. I was in a fast food restaurant
> in San Francisco a few months back and they were manually taking
> orders. I think the only reason they stayed open was because the owner
> was there. Last summer a McDonald's in Paris next to the hotel my
> family was staying at shut down because their computer system was down.
> It ticked me off because we ended up eating at some pricey cafe next
> door. I guess I'm a typical dumb American, traveling all the way to
> Paris to eat at McDonald's.
>
>
> Richard Troy wrote:
> > On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Mark Walker wrote:
> >
> >> LOL, I remember those days. "Uh, can you hold on? My computer just
> >> went down." or "you need to fill out form 1203-B, send us $25 and we'll
> >> get you the information you need in six weeks." Just kidding, but
> >> certainly reliability standards and information demands are much higher
> >> these days, aren't they?
> >>
> >>
> >
> > "Reliability standards ... higher these days?"
> >
> > -har-har-har!- That's a good one!
> >
> > Sure, in terms of bits moved/processed between hardware failures, things
> > have much improved, but I can't help but think if what a joke it is that
> > favored operating systems think it's OK to run out of memory for their own
> > activity and randomly kill processes so they don't hang! HAH! Some
> > Reilability. And people think this is a Good Thing (tm) because 1% of
> > overhead was saved!
> >
> > <rant>
> > Sure wish the Open Source OS people would get a clue; paying a percent or
> > so for reliability pays for itself thousands of times over and most
> > people, if knowledgeable, would choose to spend the overhead to have a
> > system that really is reliable.
> > </rant>
> >
> >
> > Richard
> >
> >
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>

--
Richard Troy, Chief Scientist
Science Tools Corporation
510-924-1363 or 202-747-1263
rtroy(at)ScienceTools(dot)com, http://ScienceTools.com/