Re: Larry Ellison comments on Microsoft's benchmark

What I want to know is how the system can still be reliable if one or more servers are down. If the data is inaccessible then how can any query be reliable? I can understand if there is some striping going on, but even then if two machines go down all of the data is not accessible. How can the database as a whole be worth hitting if only one of twelve servers is up (as Ivana claimed).

In article <396A6458.ACB487A_at_att.net>, db-guru_at_att.net said...
> Ivana Humpalot wrote:
> > <<snipped>>
> > If you set the disk aside for a moment and look only at the
> > reliability of the machines (and OS, especially in Windows land),
> > then Oracle Parallel Server with the same 12 machines is INFINITELY
> > more reliable than a DB/2 or MS SQL on 12 machines. Why? Because
> > in Oracle Parallel Server, if one machine goes down the system
> > as a whole is unaffected (except for lower performance.) Thus
> > unless all the machines go down at the same time (very unlikely)
> > your system is up. In DB/2 or MS SQL, if AT LEAST one machine
> > goes down the system as a whole is down. If you have 12 machines
> > then the probability of at least one machine going down is
> > 12 times higher, so your system as a whole is 12 times less
> > reliable compared to a system with only one machine. And if you
> > compare to Oracle Parallel Server running on the same 12 machines,
> > DB/2 and MS SQL are INFINITELY less reliable.
>
> Please let me know who is running OPS on 12 machines. Why? Because I
> want to stay as far away as possible. It requires an experienced DBA to
> handle backup and recovery on a 2 server OPS system. I can't imagine
> trying to keep the logs of 12 machines straight. Also, what kind of
> disk farm can handle connections to 12 servers simultaneously? I think
> you are well past the realm of practicality. That is why MPP servers
> have a place in high performance applications.
  Received on Mon Jul 10 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT