Re: web app down every three months

Joel Rees wrote:
>
> Did some simple searches, scanned back a couple of days in this NG, so
> I guess I haven't done enough homework. And I can't give enough detail
> yet.
>
> But here's the question anyway, in case the general symptoms ring a
> bell with someone:
>
> We have a web application installed at a customer's site with apache,
> Oracle (8), and php on a pair of MSW2k servers. (Oracle, of course,
> gets its own machine.)
>
> About every three months (rough estimate) the web application starts
> sending visitors to our "busy" page. (That's the one that catches just
> about everything but attempts to jump directly to URLs we don't want
> visitors jumping directly to.) The logs seem to indicate the database
> is in some strange state, so the customer re-boots the database
> server. (The customer does not seem to like to re-boot the server.)
>
> I'm inclined to think this is expected behavior for the setup, myself.
> If I am right, I would sure appreciate a pointer to some material to
> back me up (and maybe convince my boss to move the database to a Linux
> box, and apache/php to an openBSD box).
>
> If I'm wrong, and there are some parameters we can look at to tune the
> database server, I'd appreciate some suggestions.
>
> Joel Rees

Is the Oracle server also on W2K? if so, Wxx has always had a history of requiring a reboot after some time. I have been at many very large (250+ WNT servers) that were rebooted every other week on a set schedule for this very purpose. This "inconvenience" kept them from having similar symptoms where the listeners started to act similar to your situation. (And they say WNT/2K is ready for prime time -- hogwash.

If you want my professional opinion (free of charge even...) Move the database server to a real OS. Tru64 (soon to be integrated with HP/UX), HP/UX, or (if you have too,) Solaris. If you need it on a secure OS, use OpenVMS.

If you need a real database engine use Oracle Rdb (not to be confused with 7/8i/9i) on OpenVMS. I have one database that has been open (manufacturing shop floor) for 455 days 0 hrs, 22 minutes.

I don't believe I have ever seen an Oracle database open/operational that long. Unix, NT all need rebooting far too often to be considered "24x7".

So, your reboot of evey 3 months is a much better track record than I have seen from ANY site where I have worked (mostly F-500 companies).

-- 
Regards,

Michael Austin            OpenVMS Admin/User since June 1984
First DBA Source, Inc.    Registered Linux User #261163
Sr. Consultant            http://www.firstdbasource.com
                          http://www.firstdbasource.com/donation.html
704-947-1089 (Office)     704-236-4377 (Mobile)