[ale] Oracle on Linux in production?

[Jeff Hubbs]

On Mon, 2003-01-13 at 21:08, J.M. Taylor wrote:
> Greetings, Alers,
> 
> Do any of ya'll have experience running Oracle (pref. 8i or 9i) in
> production on Linux?  A client of a friend does some rather extreme number
> of transactions per minute (in the millions) and is considering moving
> their Oracle install to Linux.  I know absolutely nothing about the type
> of hardware they're considering, so I'm looking for broad generalizations
> here :)
> 
> Many thanks
> jenn

Jenn -

I should have such problems to solve, as go-fast issues are among my
favorite.  

One thing that may constrain your choices is what kind of clustering
arrangement is sought, if any.  I remember about 3 years ago in a
TurboLinux Cluster Server white paper that described a high-end
Oracle-driven Web site, they still recommended throwing money at Sun to
get their clustering 'fu on board.  

For this kind of "ludicrous speed" thinking, I would want to steer
myself toward Open Source OSses and Linux in particular because there is
a lot of latitude as far as what to include and what not to include in
your production systems; you can whack whole sections of kernel out that
just aren't going to be used.  The flip side is that you have a way to
take advantage of new advances in kernel 'fu - witness the recent VM
changes and the pre-emptible kernel work.  

Now, some other OS/HW platform combo might still blow "Lintel" into the
weeds (VMS/Alpha? Solaris/Sun?) for this - I just don't know for certain
and some firsthand testing should be carried out.  But, when you think
about it, if you stick to the x86 world, that is where the big speed
push is going (thanks again, gamers!)  Also, you have overclocking and
watercooling options there (thanks yet again, gamers) that you aren't
going to get elsewhere.  

I also must ask - if speed is the game, is Oracle the name?  Should
other RDBMSses at least be experimented with to see if they provide a
better sweet spot for your friend's application?  

- Jeff

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