Re: Looking for database hosting

Nik, you may be underestimating just how much performance can be obtained
from a single database server. For example, an IBM p595 server connected to
an array of ds8300 storage devices could reasonably be expected to provide
several orders of magnitude more performance when compared to commodity
hardware. In commodity space (albeit, just barely), a 16 core opteron
running (the admittedly yet-to-be-released) FreeBSD 7, and a suitably
provisioned SAN should also enormously outperform a beige-box solution, and
at a fraction of the cost. If it's performance you care about then the
pgsql-performance list (which I have cc'd) is the place to talk about it.

I realize this doesn't address your desire to get out of database server
administration. I am not aware of any company which provides database
hosting, further I'm not entirely convinced that's a viable business
solution. The technical issues (security, latency and reliability are the
ones that immediately come to mind) associated with a hosted database server
solution suggest to me that this would not be economically viable. The
business issues around out-sourcing a critical, if not central component of
your architecture seem, at least to me, to be insurmountable.

Andrew

On 8/19/07, Niklas Saers <niklassaers(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> the company I'm doing work for is expecting a 20 times increase in
> data and seeks a 10 times increase in performance. Having pushed our
> database server to the limit daily for the past few months we have
> decided we'd prefer to be database users rather than database server
> admins. :-)
>
> Are you or can you recommend a database hosting company that is good
> for clients that require more power than what a single database
> server can offer?
>
> Cheers
>
> Nik
>
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