Re: [vox] PostgreSQL vs. Oracle

[Eric Engelhard <ericMAPS_cl@pacbell.net>]

Don Werve wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 11:23:15AM -0800, Rod Roark wrote:
[snip]
> > BTW I suspect that Oracle will seriously outperform PG for databases
> > larger than 2-3 GB.  But maybe that's changed too.  It would be nice to
> > see some recent benchmarks.
> 
> I'd say that would be an accurate assesment, only because PG doesn't have
> any way of dealing with raw disks (tell me if I'm wrong on this one, as
> I'd love to be); and you can't beat the performance kick that comes from
> not having to deal with the filesystem layer by using raw I/O.

I asked a competent db guy about this and he said that although Oracle
has this capability, most are not configured in this way. Is this an
unnecessary burden for a smaller db?

> Then again, anyone considering a large database on Intel hardware is insane;
> there's a reason why big databases run on big iron.  Let's see an Intel
> machine hold 128 processors, talk to ten seperate fibre channel arrays, and
> dynamically re-assign CPUs, memory, and I/O from a serial port.  Oh, and
> we can't forget the ability to hot-swap almost every component on the
> machine with zero downtime.  That's why people like Sun, IBM, and HP are
> still in business.

... and yet Oracle intends on replacing big iron with clustered Lintel.
I wonder if big iron can really compete with multiple Linux boxes and a
NetAp in the background. It does create another layer to optimize, but
how many coders can you hire for the difference in cost?

> 
> But otherwise, I like Postgres, and I don't care too much for Oracle.  From
> a coder's point of view, Oracle does have some neat features that aren't
> present in Postgres; but, at the same time, it's nothing that can't be
> easily implemented in the DB-interface layer of an application, and for the
> savings of not using Oracle...

I like postgres and have never used Oracle, so I really appreciate your
comments.
--
Eric Engelhard
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