Re: PostgreSQL and Ultrasparc T1

On 12/18/05, Juan Casero <caseroj(at)comcast(dot)net> wrote:
> Can anyone tell me how well PostgreSQL 8.x performs on the new Sun Ultrasparc
> T1 processor and architecture on Solaris 10? I have a custom built retail
> sales reporting that I developed using PostgreSQL 7.48 and PHP on a Fedora
> Core 3 intel box. I want to scale this application upwards to handle a
> database that might grow to a 100 GB. Our company is green mission conscious
> now so I was hoping I could use that to convince management to consider a Sun
> Ultrasparc T1 or T2 system provided that if I can get the best performance
> out of it on PostgreSQL. So will newer versions of PostgreSQL (8.1.x) be
> able to take of advantage of the multiple cores on a T1 or T2? I cannot
> change the database and this will be a hard sell unless I can convince them
> that the performance advantages are too good to pass up. The company is
> moving in the Win32 direction and so I have to provide rock solid reasons for
> why I want to use Solaris Sparc on a T1 or T2 server for this database
> application instead of Windows on SQL Server.

I do not know that anyone outside pilot orgs have received their
orders for the new T1 machines, so real world experience will not be
available yet. The big question is whether or not it manages the
processors only for threads (in which case Postgresql won't benefit
much) or for processes as well.

PostgreSQL takes a "process-parallel" approach to parallelism, not
thread-level. There are lost of historical reasons, but, that's just
hte way it is for now.

Chris
--
| Christopher Petrilli
| petrilli(at)gmail(dot)com