RE: Running Informix on a Pentium based System
Intel is fine if that is all the budged can do. Try to get at least 4 CPU's on any platform with Informix. Try to go RAID10, else let INFORMIX do the mirror, else only mirror Roor, Phys, LLog. Get lots of Fast disks {10000+RPM at SCSI ULTRA 160} disks, at least 6, Root, Phys, LLOG, Temp1,2,3. Compaq is a good INTEL option. We ran a Cellular Billing system on Compaq 6000, 4*200Mhz Pentium CPU, 2Gig ram, +- 100 Gig {Still our stupid days, raid5} Online 5 and +- 1000 Users at 80% utilization. I found UNIXWARE outperforms all INTEL UNIX's {Not tested against Linux}. Sar does exists on UNIXWARE. SUN is fine, but Digital is what I prefer {There CPU's range in the 700+Mhz}. HP is to expensive for what you get. All depends on budget. Anyway if you are switching from Access to Informix, your database is quite small and anyway on Intel. Suppose you wont need 4 Cpu's initially, but remember Intel does not scale well {And IO does not come close to HP, SUN, DIGITAL}, and the 4 Cpu servers are expensive. -----Original Message----- From: David Williams [SMTP:djw@smooth1.demon.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2000 12:00 AM To: informix-list@iiug.org Subject: Re: Running Informix on a Pentium based System In article <8l480m$37r$1@news.xmission.com>, Obnoxio The Clown <obnoxio@hotmail.com> writes > >From: "Jerry Chimutanda" <jerry@compcentre.uz.ac.zw> >> >>We are considering switching from Access to Infomix, and my boss thinks >>Informix can not be run on a pentium based computer, preferring someting >>like a SUN box instead. >> >>Could I be enlightened here? > >Your boss is both right and wrong, grasshopper. Oh, young Jedi. Do the path of oneness you seek? Of performance What do you know, hmm? Sun box are certainly faster since Intel boxs a) do not scale as well b) have much worse I/O performance which is crucial to a database. Also Solaris is a lot easier to debug almost any other Intel UNIX SCO does not have truss to trace system calls which is needed for debugging. UNIXWare has no sar or vmstat?? something like that, I remember looking at another tool to debug performance problems. Certainly UNIXWARE has no iostat -E to list predictive failures on hardware and show EEC recovered errors on the drives. Linux is fine but remember that using Solaris on Ultrasparc hardware means Sun make the software AND THE HARDWARE. If there is a bug you have only one vendor to go to and Sun are responsive when it comes to support calls. >________________________________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com > -- David Williams