Re: What so special about PostgreSQL and other RDBMS?

From: Howard J. Rogers <hjr_at_dizwell.com>
Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 09:44:12 +1000
Message-ID: <40a6ab3f$0$31675$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

Daniel Morgan wrote:

> Howard J. Rogers wrote:
>

>>> And, to be quite blunt, if the only operating system it will run on
>>> is Windows that becomes a limitation affecting all of the above. Any
>>> time you database server is at risk from every 16 year old on the
>>> planet. It can't really be called secure or stable.
>>
>>
>> Oh, I dunno. Stick it behind a firewall with some AV software and at 
>> least keep it (OS and AV) minimally up to date, and it will do quite 
>> reasonable service, and the script kiddies can be largely forgotten 
>> about.
>>  
>> Regards
>> HJR

>
>
> And would you then ignore all of the security patches?
>
> If you don't ... you still need to at least once a month, likely more
> often, down your production database to apply them and reboot the
> server.

True enough. But not every patch needs to be applied to every server (one can get more intelligent about these things that the CYA Microsoft advisories suggest).

But even so. It takes me about 48 seconds to shutdown and re-start my Windows 2000 Advanced server. I think I can live with 48 seconds of downtime a month. I think *most* people could live with that sort of downtime a month, actually. The number of people who truly, absolutely, must have no compromises 5 9's uptime are actually quite small, if you look at the planet as a whole.

> For what possible benefit? I'm still looking for one thing Windows
> can do that, for example, Linux can't do ... except perhaps steal
> cycles from the CPU.

Well, that's a change in the terms of the debate. My issue is with anyone calling Windows 'not an operating system', because it evidently is. I didn't say it does one thing that Linux can't do. Nor vice versa.

Just accept the fact that a large number of servers around the world are running Windows, whether you like it or not, and they somehow manage to achieve productive work by doing so. A good DBA will therefore accept Windows as just one more tool to be understood and used appropriately, and not expend serious effort trying to slag it off.

Regards
HJR Received on Sat May 15 2004 - 18:44:12 CDT