Database Upgrade Complete
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:54 amPBase.com is now running on a Sun V890 ( http://www.pbase.com/slug/sun_install) as the main database server. There are rougly 40 smaller Dell boxes running web servers and miscellaneous other jobs.
The upgrade went fairly smoothly and took about 14 hours. I was predicting 24 and thought it might take as much as 36. Most of this time was waiting for the the data to be copied from one machine to another and for the index rebuilds.
There were some performance problems for the first couple of hours since Oracle (the database software) hadn't yet collected statistics on the data and was making some bad guesses at query optimization.
It will be easier to measure on Monday or Tuesday when traffic is higher, but it seems like this machine is easily going to handle the load.
Right now it has four dual-core CPUs, 32GB RAM, and is attached to 24disks. We originally ordered 36disks, but due to some limitations of the disk arrays, we ordered another 12 which should be here next week.
When we attach the second group of 24 disks, I'm guessing the I/O capacity of these disks will be at least 6 times that of the previous machine. Even better is the fact that because of the increased memory, the disk I/O will be less than half of the old machine.
So this machine should be able to handle far more traffic than we do now.
And if we run into performance problems later, this server still has room for another 4 dual-core CPUs, and another 32GB RAM. Even more disks are easy too add as well.
We're really glad to finally have a serious machine in place. Instead of struggling with overloaded equipment, we'll be able to concentrate on improving the software. We still have lots of smaller servers to fix up to improve reliability, but this new Sun will be a solid foundation for everything else.
For the last several months, my phone has been ringing all day. The database is configured to message my phone when ever it's having trouble which has been far too often. I'm looking forward to the silence.
-slug
The upgrade went fairly smoothly and took about 14 hours. I was predicting 24 and thought it might take as much as 36. Most of this time was waiting for the the data to be copied from one machine to another and for the index rebuilds.
There were some performance problems for the first couple of hours since Oracle (the database software) hadn't yet collected statistics on the data and was making some bad guesses at query optimization.
It will be easier to measure on Monday or Tuesday when traffic is higher, but it seems like this machine is easily going to handle the load.
Right now it has four dual-core CPUs, 32GB RAM, and is attached to 24disks. We originally ordered 36disks, but due to some limitations of the disk arrays, we ordered another 12 which should be here next week.
When we attach the second group of 24 disks, I'm guessing the I/O capacity of these disks will be at least 6 times that of the previous machine. Even better is the fact that because of the increased memory, the disk I/O will be less than half of the old machine.
So this machine should be able to handle far more traffic than we do now.
And if we run into performance problems later, this server still has room for another 4 dual-core CPUs, and another 32GB RAM. Even more disks are easy too add as well.
We're really glad to finally have a serious machine in place. Instead of struggling with overloaded equipment, we'll be able to concentrate on improving the software. We still have lots of smaller servers to fix up to improve reliability, but this new Sun will be a solid foundation for everything else.
For the last several months, my phone has been ringing all day. The database is configured to message my phone when ever it's having trouble which has been far too often. I'm looking forward to the silence.
-slug
. Congratulations on an upgrade well done.
