Re: Informix on NT platform - Impact of 100 to 400+ Users

Troy Muller <tmuller@agora.rdrop.com> writes: >Timothy M. Hood wrote: >> >> Rob Culhane wrote: >> > >> > We are considering implementing an Informix Online Rel 7 server in an NT >> > 4 way SMP environment. We are concerned about the viability of initially >> > starting with 100+ users and growing to possibly 400+ users. Looking for >> > other people's experiences including maximum users on NT before >> > degradation? >> > Questions regarding impact of combining startup warehouse with OLTP >> > applications on same platform also exist. >> >> There's no way I'd bet my job on NT in that situation. This is clearly a >> scenario for Unix. Not only better performance, but better security. A >> system supporting that many users requires an expert no matter what >> platform, so you might as well do it right. If I could pick the >> hardware, I'd pick a Digital Alpha 4100 running 64-bit Unix and 64-bit >> Informix. >I would also not bet my job on NT either, but some are and are >struggling with the old "NT will work eventually". Even though UNIX is >working NOW! I don't trust NT for large databases either. But, it's a "gut feeling" - I don't actually *know* NT very well. From all that I've seen, though it may be more real than DOS/Win3/Win95, it's still not enough of a real OS to support a large, high availability database. Why, just now the NT server next to me crashed. It's being used by some people here to develop an application. They should've be crashing the entire server, developing an application on it. What if there were an Informix OnLine database running on that server too? However, as I said, I don't really *know* NT. The client I'm working for now is planning to put up a large database for one of their web products soon, and they're mostly an NT shop with a little bit of Unix. I'm planning to recommend an HP9000 K-series server to them. But they're used to Intel and Microsoft, and I'm anticipating that there will be some trouble convincing them. I don't think I want to end up being responsible for a large database on an NT server, and would love to avoid that potential mess. So, if anyone out there has any relevant experiences to tell about, I would like to hear them. Real experiences with databases with several hundred users, or CGI clients with thousands of web hits an hour or more, running on NT - how reliable were they? What sorts of problems did you encounter? Either post here, or email to cos@leftbank.com. If I get a lot of email responses, I'll summarize on the newsgroup later on. -- Cos (Ofer Inbar) -- cos@leftbank.com cos@cs.brandeis.edu -- The Left Bank Operation -- lbo@leftbank.com http://www.leftbank.com/ Now, for the Quote out of Context(TM), from Mike Haertel <mike@ai.mit.edu> "I think it's pretty clear that Unix is dead as a research system."