Hello, Just to note something interesting on database scalability: i'm not sure whether your database is used for processing or just data lookup, but if it's used for data lookup, look into memcached -- it's a really scalable caching system which can reduce your database load a lot.
I know a lot of large websites (slashdot, livejournal, etc) use this solution -- they have dozens of gigabytes worth of memcached processes to reduce the cache hits (I'm told livejournal has around 200 of those servers running, making sure around 99.99% of the database queries are just cache hits). This probably has been discussed on this list before, but just in case: look into it. Regards, Leon Mergen On 8/19/07, Andrew Hammond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Nik, you may be underestimating just how much performance can be obtained > from a single database server. For example, an IBM p595 server connected to > an array of ds8300 storage devices could reasonably be expected to provide > several orders of magnitude more performance when compared to commodity > hardware. In commodity space (albeit, just barely), a 16 core opteron > running (the admittedly yet-to-be-released) FreeBSD 7, and a suitably > provisioned SAN should also enormously outperform a beige-box solution, and > at a fraction of the cost. If it's performance you care about then the > pgsql-performance list (which I have cc'd) is the place to talk about it. > > I realize this doesn't address your desire to get out of database server > administration. I am not aware of any company which provides database > hosting, further I'm not entirely convinced that's a viable business > solution. The technical issues (security, latency and reliability are the > ones that immediately come to mind) associated with a hosted database server > solution suggest to me that this would not be economically viable. The > business issues around out-sourcing a critical, if not central component of > your architecture seem, at least to me, to be insurmountable. > > Andrew > > > On 8/19/07, Niklas Saers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > the company I'm doing work for is expecting a 20 times increase in > > data and seeks a 10 times increase in performance. Having pushed our > > database server to the limit daily for the past few months we have > > decided we'd prefer to be database users rather than database server > > admins. :-) > > > > Are you or can you recommend a database hosting company that is good > > for clients that require more power than what a single database > > server can offer? > > > > Cheers > > > > Nik > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > > TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to > > choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not > > match > > > > -- Leon Mergen http://www.solatis.com
