Re: native Oracle-port on Linux -- what would it take?

From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne_at_news.amrcorp.com>
Date: 1997/12/18
Message-ID: <67bjle$cfg2@george.sabre.com>#1/1

On 18 Dec 1997 08:26:24 GMT, Matthew Hannigan <mlh_at_zipper.zip.com.au> wrote:
>In article <679vcl$5j1_at_pell.pell.portland.or.us>,
>david parsons <o r c @ p e l l . p o r t l a n d . o r . u s> wrote:
>>In article <01bd0b13$3da5c480$2e5c0c26_at_sfinance3>,
>>S V <sv1_at_mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>Linux is missing many features for any OS to be worth considering
>>>as a viable database platform.
>>>1. Linux has no logical volumes layer.
>>
>> You don't need that for a database.
>>
>>>2. Linux has no transaction-oriented filesystem.
>>
>> You don't care about that for a database.
>
>Yeah, last I heard the db does transactions, not the fs!

And if we then look at the next question (raw devices), we just get into a drastically stupid contradiction. If we're using raw devices, then it doesn't *matter* how native file systems work, because we're not *using* a native file system.

>>>3. Linux has no support for raw devices - hence NO even remote possibility
>>> to run Oracle Parallel Server.
>>
>> The only way this becomes an issue is if the system buffering gets in
>> the way of the database buffering, since any serious high-reliability
>> database would want to talk directly to the disk.
>
>In official Oracle documentation it says that using raw partitions
>can in some circumstances _reduce_ performance, because the OS does
>a better job of buffering. It is a lot less flexible anyway.

And with increasing amounts of buffering being done:

a) In the OS,
b) On the RAID controller,
c) On the SCSI controller (there *is* no other option today, for

high-availability DBs, other than, perhaps, some *MONDO* expensive proprietary interfaced systems; anyone who is thinking of using an IDE variant at this point should be taken out and *shot*...) d) On the hard drive itself,

the notion that the DBMS can conceivably control what buffering is taking place is becoming increasingly close to laughable. Throw in anything "new" like I2O into the picture, where there's a *further* controller that probably also buffers things, and the value of raw partitions falls further.

>>> [other crap deleted]
>
>What's the bet that someone on the Oracle development team _has_
>actually ported Oracle to Linux, even if it just for his/her own
>amusement? (people from Oracle, this is your cue to make an
>anonymous posting :-)

I heard rumor that it had been done. Which entirely makes sense. And would be entirely separate from the question of whether it will ever be available as 'product.'

-- 
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Received on Thu Dec 18 1997 - 00:00:00 CST