Re: terabyte+ database requirements

Tim,

A couple opinions from my experience:

(1) Stay away from NT (A rule I live by). A close friend of mine works for a company with several multi-terabyte Oracle databases, some of them under NT. They seem to have alot more problems with the NT servers than the Unix servers. Several of their databases never stop reindexing. I will prob get flamed for saying that, but I don't feel NT is up to tasks that large (we don't even let it serve files here). (2) *Lots* of RAM...I mean as much RAM as the system can hold. I would consider 2-4 gigs of RAM at minimum.
(3) Lots of Fast Disks. Go with the magic Oracle configuration, use RAID 0 or 10 only (avoid RAID 5). We use a Xiotech Magnitude Storage Area Network Solution here. We've seen people with Mirrored Magnitudes, RAID 0 inside the box.

There are other things to consider. What kind of load do you expect the system to get? 10 users? 100 users? 100,000 hits an hour? My "when all else fails rule of thumb is that one person can support 100,000$-200,000$ in hardware/software. It's not a real solid rule, but a good piece of equip (Sun E10k) with $100,000 in Oracle licenses should have at least two admins - a Unix guy and an Oracle guy. You also need to consider the surrounding infastructure with a system like this. If you get a welfare Storage Area Network Solution (under $100k) chances are it's "network attached", and you need to figure in an extra network engineer (watch your collisions go through the roof). You can skimp on manpower, but I promise you'll regret it.

My suggestion is to go to someone like Sun and have them quote you a solution, and go from there. Try Compaq too (the DEC/Alpha stuff, not their PC line). See what IBM has to offer as well.

Plan on a minimum of three people to devote to this though, and get that checkbook ready.

Hope it helps,
John

In article <8bg0uh$r9h$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>, thentzel_at_yahoo.com wrote:
> the company i work for is considering a product offering (not a data
> warehouse) that will generate four terabytes of data in two years
 under
> the most optimistic usage prediction. i have been tasked with
> estimating the number of people, nodes, etc. that will be necessary to
> support this application.
>
> at this point, i expect to build the system on top of an oracle
> database; but the software version and hardware have not been
 addressed
> yet.
>
> basically, it would be really valuable for me to hear about
> experiences/tribulations/costs people have encountered building and
> managing a similar sized system.
>
> tia,
> tim
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>

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