RE: OT RE: Async I/O on Windows - Federated Database Foolishness

What's a federated database????????

||  I don't know. Where did you read it? <shrug>

We really need to understand this otherwise we'll be duped by Microsoft's deceptive benchmark claims!!

||  wow! thanks for saving me, I was just in the process of being duped
        by Oracle's deceptive benchmark claims!!  :-) Seriously, the TPC         is *independent*.

Comparing the performance of SQLServer in a federated database configuration to Oracle in a parallel server configuration is useless and misleading but that's what Microsoft is doing when they tout their TPC-C benchmarks. In a non-federated database configuration Oracle8 outperforms SQLServer handily. Do we really want performance without fault tolerance? How well does SQLServer perform when it's down because of its fragility? ;-/

||  See previous posts on the "fragility" of a cluster. When was the
last time you heard about the DELL site going down? Oh, never? Right, and they use NT. How about Ebay?  Oh, several times a year?  How about THAT for a BROKEN TOILET of a configuration: Oracle on Sun. Heh heh heh.

Microsoft "shattered" the TPC-C record with the "federated database" architecture but even a self-confessed pro-Microsoft apologist pointed out that no one in their right mind would actually setup a production OLTP database that way.

||  That word keeps popping up. Does "federated" mean anything" Does it
matter if the opposing football team is named "The Federates" if they kick your team all over the field? It's not about the name, it's about performance....or...price/performance. And Microsoft wins on both fronts. (This month. Who know when Oracle will submit it's next TPC benchmark...)

The point of the demo at OpenWorld

||  ROFLMMAO!!!!  NOW, I get it: Are you really citing OpenWorld Oracle
        Corporation     presentations of Microsoft systems. OH MY GOD, is         that impartial enough for you?  LOL>>>>>

was to highlight the fragility and impracticality of the federated database architecture as a real world

||  Oh yea, you should have seen the Oracle DEMO at the MICROSOFT CONFERENCE. LOL!!!!

fault tolerant solution. The demo was quite amusing with smoke and sound effects. While displaying transaction rates, a node in a running cluster was "blown up" with predictable results. The transaction rate for SQLServer went down to zero because the database was down while the Oracle Parallel Server cluster kept on running. Of course Microsoft does not want to see its products trashed regardless of the truth so, in an attempt to prevent Larry from repeating this demo they sought an injunction based on the fine print of their license agreement which says you can't run benchmark tests without prior written approval from Microsoft. (Does anyone ever read license agreements?)

||  Two points. One: Oracle Engineers must have misconfigured the Microsoft

        servers. What a shock! Perhaps they should have gone to the Dell site?  
        Upon failure there is no data loss, and imperceptible slowdown. 
        Two:  Try to publish ANYTHING about Oracle sometime, and see what 
        happens based on the agreement you signed with Larry...:-)

We need a new, more fair benchmark to measure transaction rates AND fault tolerance of a database cluster. Something like a standard 4 node cluster and a random blow up of a node. This new benchmark would need to run a practical, real world application and measure transaction rates before, during and after the blow up. It would also be nice to measure the linear scalability of adding new nodes (which is impossible under the federated database approach without doing a complete reorg).

||  This is the best idea i have heard in a long time. Why not throw
in a scalability-across-servers part as well. I wish it would happen. But, the major vendors NEVER go head to head in this way. I believe that MS would wipe up the bloody floor in the Price/Performance battle with Oracle.

Oh but now I'm dreaming so it's back to reading the reviews and making decisions based on gut feel.

||  You can always read the Best Buys at Ebay, if it's up. :-)
Received on Mon Feb 05 2001 - 16:41:53 CST