Re: Memory

In article <12a.2509.905.0N3E20BB_at_compudata.com>, barry.roomberg_at_compudata.com (Barry Roomberg) writes:
> I'm running O7 7.16 under SCO Unix 3.2.4.2.
> 16 Meg memory, 16 Meg swap. 2 Instances taking
> 1.5 meg and 4 meg respectively. I run a process
> that hits on the smaller one, reading records and
> outputting. This process gets re-invoked about 50
> times for different tables. The system starts swapping
> immediately and levels out with 30% swap used.
>
> After running for about 15 minutes, I get
> Can't Fork process
> messages, which Oracle tells me means I need more memory.
> Oracle also told me to double my swap space.

Yes.

>
> SCO tells me I need more memory and also that it doesn't
> matter how much swap space I have at this point. Huh?

The latter may be something to do with 'forking' which may require additional REAL memory.

If that's not the case then I think they mean that you need more memory to run Oracle efficiently. You could just increase the swap space but your system would be doing a lot of swapping for no real gain.

>
> Isn't the point of swap to act as slow memory?

Yes.

>
> How much memory DO I need to run O7?

We run O7 under VMS and our minimum buffer area is about 6Meg (System Global Area = 6Meg) but our big databases are 32Meg+. Oracle's default init.ora settings give a shared SQL area of 3.5 Meg so 4Meg might be a bit too small. Bare in mind that we are a VMS site though. Each of the Oracle products chews up a couple of Meg when running too but this can be shared between users for a once-off cost.

I did see an Oracle manual for SCO UNIX once and I'm sure all this is discussed in the installation guide.

Perhaps another SCO UNIX site would care to expand on the above...

-- 

Bruce...        pihlab_at_cbr.hhcs.gov.au

*******************************************************************
* Bruce Pihlamae  --  Database Administration                     *
* Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health            *
* Canberra, ACT, Australia                        (W) 06-289-7056 *
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* These are my own thoughts and opinions, few that I have.        *
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