Forum OpenACS Q&A: Postgres memory usage vs. Oracle

Posted by Adam Farkas on 08/22/00 02:14 AM

How memory-intensive is postgres vs. Oracle? If I wanted to build a
server that is used by, say, 10 OpenACS developers doing their thing,
each running emacs, aolservers, the whole shebang..

I know that under the same conditions, Oracle gets very cranky if the
system has < a gig of RAM [it becomes an intolerable swap-fest.]

Any one ever try something like this with the OpenACS?
thx.

2: Response to Postgres memory usage vs. Oracle (response to 1)

Posted by Patrick Giagnocavo on 08/22/00 02:27 AM

Adam, my early experience (based on a multiple virtual hosting setup I
am working on) is that you should budget about 50MB per OpenACS
install. If they are running emacs, command line tools like perl,
psql clients, ssh, add more RAM. So figure 75MB per developer.

3: Response to Postgres memory usage vs. Oracle (response to 1)

Posted by Roberto Mello on 08/22/00 02:46 AM

50 Mb per developer sounds like a good number... If you're not doing anything intensive you can push a little further... Our little club server runs OpenACS in a P133 with 64 Mb RAM and slow IDE drives (hey, it was built with donated parts - VA promised us a server and never delivered), gets 500-1000 hits/day and the swap is very small.

This little server also does lots of FTP serving, rsync, lists, etc. Whenever we tell what our server does and its specs to NT people they simply tell us we are liars 😊

4: Response to Postgres memory usage vs. Oracle (response to 1)

Posted by Chris Mauritz on 08/26/00 09:20 PM

I haven't done any testing yet (but I will). Our situation is that we were running Oracle 8i on Linux and decided to switch to PostgreSQL 7.0.2. Currently, BOTH are running. With 3 developers beating on the machine (they use emacs), X, and a couple setiathome processes (grin) running, the machine is still quite speedy and is easily the fastest Linux box I've played on to date.

specs:

Supermicro P6DGS dual slot1 motherboard
2 x P3-850 SECC2 coppermines
1gig SDRAM (2 x 512mb ECC SDRAM)
3 x 9gig Quantum Atlas V 7200 drives (software RAID 0)
integrated dual channel Adaptec U2W controller
cheesy Netgear FA310X ethernet card
matrox G400 video
Redhat 6.2

I even configured it with a 2gig swapfile (per Oracle's recommendation). I've yet to witness it swap.

Cheers,
Chris