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Are There Large RDBMS Using Linux?

Posted by Hemos on from the big-honking-databases dept.

Jason Perlow of Linux Magazine writes:" With all of the recent computer press coverage of Amazon and Intel converting their web servers and other front end application servers to Linux, many of these stories neglect to mention that the back end systems these companies use still rely on commercial Unixes like Solaris, AIX and HPUX to host their RDBMSes (Oracle, DB2, Sybase, Informix) for their mission critical transactional applications and data mining. Are there any companies out there actively using Linux to host a mission-critical RDBMS ? or looking to replace UNIX with Linux for this purpose?"

3 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. not a company, but.. by transient · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The City of Bloomington, IN will be doing this. All of our servers are Linux, with the exception of one NT machine for a small Progress database, and several HP-UX machines for Oracle. We'll be migrating them to Linux in 2002.

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    irb(main):001:0>
  2. hmm by YakumoFuji · · Score: 5, Interesting
    to answer your question, i dont know of any.

    i myself am in the datawarehouse of a large international company, our DWH is run off IBM as400's with DB2 + essbase/hyperion.

    there are several factors why there will be no change in this.

    IBM offers complete intergrated solutions (HW+SW) that you dont get with opensource solutions.

    the opensource rdbms cant compete with the likes of DB2 and Oracle in terms of scalability and features.

    3rd party integration. (Esssbase/Hyperion) database cube solutions dont exist for linux/freebsd. (man 3d cube db's are funky)

    stable cross platform ODBC drivers, (winnt drivers for ASP, JODBC java+websphere, AS400 + RS6000 drivers)

    support. (who gives 24/7 support on postgress, and send out tech support guys giving consultations, will come on site on a sunday at 4am?)

    what OpenSource rdbms provide true mutli language support (we have records in cryllic, japanese, american, german, etc)?

    high availablity (i dont know the current state of HA functionality in the linux kernel)

    Linux on the AS400 is not seen as providing anywhere need the requirements at present, and its opensource database solutions are same.

    (and i dont even think there is any cube database products in the opensource area... ???)

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    no sig for you
  3. This is not the right question to ask by tmark · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm *certain* there are companies out there using Linux to host "mission-critical" (whatever that means) RDMSes. But this by itself would tell us nothing of Linux's suitability for this purpose. I happen to know lots of companies that use Linux for this purpose, but they also are companies that would not be able to afford the Sun boxes and Oracle licenses that they wish they could run. I also know several places running Linux for - what they would consider to be - "mission-critical" RDMS, but what they consider to be mission-critical is FAR different than what a big investment bank or hospital would consider to be mission critical.

    Instead of just asking a question that is almost guaranteed to pat ourselves on the back, we need to also ask for descriptions of the conditions that people are using Linux for RDMSes. That is, before the answer "are you using Linux" can be properly interpreted, we also need to know answers to questions like: How many connections ? How many users ? What size of a database ? What kind of availability do you demand ? What kind of information is being stored ? How big is your staff ? How big is your budget ?

    After all, knowing that a company uses Linux to host Postgres/MySql tells us nothing if the company can't afford to buy a Sun box/Oracle license in the first place.