Re: High-Speed/Volume Database

From: Bob Hairgrove <rhairgroveNoSpam_at_Pleasebigfoot.com>
Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 13:14:36 GMT
Message-ID: <3cd52e70.12843818_at_news.ch.kpnqwest.net>


On 4 May 2002 22:15:34 -0700, gatesucks_at_hotmail.com (Bob Smith) wrote:

>Thanks for the fast response. I'll take to heart your recomendation
>regarding seeking professional help ;-)
>
>Do you have any suggestions?
>

I live in Switzerland, so I only know about local consulting companies here. You probably know somebody who was in a similar situation, maybe just ask around at the next chamber of commerce meeting?

>With regard to your comment:
>
>> Depends on how much your data integrity is worth to you as well as how
>> much (or little) downtime you can afford. You look at the licensing
>> and do your own arithmetic. ;-)
>
>Could you elaborate on the "data integrity" issue?

Mainly this is about backups and file system integrity, as well as possible hardware failure. In course of time, some piece of hardware is going to break ... it should be looked upon as a certainty. Not all database systems deal with such things equally well. The more important it is to you not to lose 1 hours' worth of data, the more you have to spend to ensure that it doesn't happen (and for insurance in case it does ;-)

Also, some systems cannot afford to be down, so they run 24/7 schedules. A database needs to allow "hot backups" (i.e. without shutting down) in this case; not all of them do (Oracle and DB2 do, however; I believe SQL Server 2000 also does, but I'm not sure). Once every so often a "cold backup" will also need to be done (i.e. shutdown, backup, startup).

Bob Hairgrove
rhairgroveNoSpam_at_Pleasebigfoot.com Received on Sun May 05 2002 - 15:14:36 CEST

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