Re: PostgreSQL alternative to "Oracle Real Application

On Wed, 2003-06-18 at 05:19, Hubert Fröhlich wrote:
> Hello list
>
> I am working with PostgreSQL for the Bavarian Cadastral Administration.
> We want to update our WWW online services so that they can use more
> data. For that reason we want to set up an archive of geographical data
> (ca. 400GB vector data and - maybe also 4 TB of raster data) manily used
> for http services, i.e. the focus is on read operations. (although we
> have to do also some kind of replication from primary storage ) The
> system should be highly performant and highly available. The use is
> designed mainly for OpenGIS standardized WWW applications on
> geographical data such as UMN MapServer ( > several 100000 web hits for
> geographical data alone). Yet it is not quite clear if we put the raster
> data simply in a file system or (as BLOBs) into a database.
>
> We use a lot of OpenSource software, not only PostgreSQL. Using
> OpenSource software is a major column of our IT strategy.
>
> Now we have got a proposal for hard- and software for this machine which
> is based mainly on the concept of the "Oracle Real Application Cluster"
> on RedHat Linux boxes & file servers.
> The concept is said to offer big performance - but this concept does not
> fit into our IT strategy very well. We are a bit cautious concerning
> promises, as Oracle Real Application Cluster seems to be some kind of
> "black box" and we do not know HOW it really works.
>
> What we would like to have is some alternative concept which allows us
> to use PostgreSQL on a powerful hardware to get highly performant and
> higly available database access on our terabytes.
>
> a) Does PostgreSQL have some features using a clustered hardware?
> b) If no, what could be an alternative hardware concept ?

You'll only be able to run 1 postmaster at a time, but in order
to only need one copy of the database and the raster data, maybe
the GlobalFileSystem would satisfy some or all of your needs.

Commercial version:
http://www.sistina.com/products_gfs.htm

OSS version:
http://opengfs.sourceforge.net/

Any "non-database" files could still be accessed by multiple web
servers.

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