Re: web app down every three months

Michael Austin <maustin_at_firstdbasource.com> wrote in message news:<3D1717A6.A57EA0F8_at_firstdbasource.com>...
> Joel Rees wrote:
> >

...
> > 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.

This is the information I need to show my boss. This response will help, but it would be good if I could show her some operational survey results or something.

> (And they say WNT/2K is ready for prime time -- hogwash.

MS has been doing a pretty good job of white-washing the old NT-needs-rebot reputation.

> 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.

I have been wishing Oracle would port to the BSD environment as well.

Hmm. Has anyone here had much success running Oracle's Linux products on openBSD under emulation?

> 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).

Thanks for the comments. I think they'll help.

Joel Rees Received on Wed Jun 26 2002 - 22:01:26 CDT