Would you upgrade to a Postgres database is VBulletin supported it?

[Ted Striker]

Apolyton outgrew MySQL about 2 years ago.

If VBulletin supported Postgres as the database backend, I bet that would minimize alot of the performance issues, especially when the site is under load.

Just my 2 cents.

[Zoid]

My (limited) experience with Postgres is that it cracks under pressure. IMC runs Postgres as a backend on their Seattle servers and they has crashed numerous times due to too heavy load on the servers, causing all kinds of havoc. But I´m no techie and it might have more to do with crappy db-scripts than Postgres...

[Ted Striker]

Yah, that's too bad about that Seattle server, I bet they are running an older version of Postgres.

The versions of Postgres that ran about 2 years ago, had some performance issues, but the newer 7.x versions are rock solid, and and light years ahead of the Postgre 6.x line of servers. Now the situation is actually the opposite of a couple of years ago, Postgres does well under high load while MySQL starts to choke.

[MarkG]

i havent researched the issue(postgres vs mysql) much, but i'm not sure it is that better

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by MarkG
i havent researched the issue(postgres vs mysql) much, but i'm < blank. seriously. this is blank > sure it is that better

Better bceause you think its truely better or better because ANYHTING has to be better than our current system?

[Skanky Burns]

He is saying that he does not think a new system will be better than the current system.
Apolyton is great considering it only has a single server - other sites with similar traffic levels use up to four times that many.

[Dinner]

How much do additional servers cost? Are they big bucks?

[Asher]

The problem with additional servers is not only the cost, but you gotta deal with load balancing and determining how you want to store things and the like.

Not much fun, a lot harder to maintain than a single server.

[Zoid]

Ted: I don´t know which version of Postgres IMC uses, but I suspect that it´s not the latest version. All I know is that since we migrated IMC-Sweden to an english server which is less busy, we haven´t had any Postgres problems whatsoever.

And I agree with Skanky, Poly stands up well, considering the immense load it has on it´s single server.

Asher: Would a bigger/faster server speed up the site? And what´s your opinion on Postgres vs MySQL? Or is this unknown territory for a MS henchman like yourself?

[MarkG]

The problem with additional servers is not only the cost, but you gotta deal with load balancing and determining how you want to store things and the like.

well, at least the step from 1 to 2 servers is easy: 1 server for apache, 1 for mysql

[Ted Striker]

I'm sorry MarkG, I take back what I initially said in my first post about performance issues, I really didn't mean it to sound like a slam on Apolyton. You and Dan have done an excellent job in keeping it running despite heavy loads, though I noticed guests are limited to what they can do on the site in terms of using its resources.

Rethinking my statement, in terms of the future, as the site continues to grow and grow, ultimatley when you scale up again, I was just curious if you had considered Postgres.

In my opinion Postgres is going to do (and has been doing) to Oracle what Linux did to commercial UNIX. That's how robust it is.

The entire .INFO registry runs on a Postgres database, and the entire .ORG database is being migrated over to Postgres. There were about 15 bids to get the .ORG registry, and every single one of them except 1 said that if they won the contract, they would use Oracle. The 1 that didn't said they would use Postgres, and they won the contract. It's really a world class system, and the largest video store retailer in Japan (their equivalent of Blockbuster in the US) is powered by Postgres, and their transaction and record levels run in the billions.

There are two things holding back the dagger from Oracle's heart at this point:

1) Postgres only runs natively on UNIX platforms (next version is supposed to support Windows)

2) It lacks an open source version of replication (though this is also the #1 priority, and there is a commercial version of replication available for Postgres).

Once open source replication is finished, watch out, because the entire landscape of databases will have changed.

All in all Mark and Dan have done an excellent job in keeping this place running though.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kamrat X
Asher: Would a bigger/faster server speed up the site? And what´s your opinion on Postgres vs MySQL? Or is this unknown territory for a MS henchman like yourself?

I'm not into databases, it's not really my field.

I've never used Postgres on the basis that I do not like it's name , but I'm familiar with MySQL since I've done some programming with PHP + MySQL.

I've no idea how it compares with Postgres.

And yeah, a bigger/faster server would speed up the site.

Mark should drop out of university and spend his tuition/textbook money on a dual P4 Xeon server. Or maybe wait until Opteron is out and make it a dual Opteron and load it up with like 16GB of RAM.

[Asher]

Out of curiousity, what're the specs for Settler?

[Ted Striker]

Asher,

What is Settler?

[H Tower]

the name of poly's server