Re: Database environment backup and system configuration

In article <56fnpk$pr4@cssun.mathcs.emory.edu>, * Wendy Zheng's ILIST account ** <wendyinf@ebi.com> writes > > Hi, Informix guru, > > I've been designing trading system handling both real time data and >interactive user input data. The real time feed data is coming from >some remote place and without stop, while the interactive user input >data is coming from some application tools provided, user input has >to refer to the real time data as well. Both data are critical and >performance is an important issue. > > Our current configuration is two HP710/100 running Informix online >version 5.04. To balance the load we have them running for different >departments and backup each other. > > We are facing database administration, performance and environment >backup problems. One proposal is to have a really powerful mechine >as the server handling only the acessing of the Informix database. >Having other processes running on some less powerful workstations. > > This might solve our general database administration problem, but >the rest of the problems is still unsolved. > > The nature of the processes is: when there is no trade, every >process is kind of sleeping, but when there are trades happening, >every process will try to access system resources to get the most >recent data and work on it. The resource request diagram is full of >sharp peaks. > > My questions are: > > 1. With one mechine as a central database server, will it >be a bottle neck and badly affect the performance? What kind of Possibly, depends if the hardware and network are up to the job. >configuration is suitable, multiple DB server to serve each department >separately or single DB server to server all department? What is a I'd probably prefer one several per department to spread the load. > >good way to balancing the load, especially between there is trade and >there is not trade? > > 2. What is a good way to have a reliable backup? The backup >here needs not only the data backup, but also the environment, which >means if any failure (database failure, process failure, or mechine >failure) happends, there will be a backup environment where users >may reconnect to and continue their normal activities. Since the >real time data is out of the control, the backup environment should >be available at the time of any failure. > Talk to Informix about Data replication, this is where you have a second machine 'where users can reconnect to and continue their normal activities' - it is AN exact copy of the first machine. (Assuming you set it to use snychronous replication). > Thanks in advance for any advice, sugguestion, comment. > > Wendy -- David Williams