[OSM-talk] Heresy - pure discussion

[Yves]

But face it, philosophy is now also part of the discussion. And that's important.
Yves 

Le 24 juillet 2020 20:50:22 GMT+02:00, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> a écrit :
>If the database was smaller and less infrastructure was reliant on it
>working I would agree with you that philosophically open source software
>makes a lot of sense.
>
>However your argument is philosophical rather than logical.
>
>Note I'm merely requesting that the idea be examined.  I am not saying I
>know what is best and all the things that need to be considered.
>
>Cheerio John
>
>On Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 14:35 Yves <ycai at mailbox.org> wrote:
>
>> You're probably have some very good points when it comes to database
>> management, but running an open map on open source software makes a lot of
>> sense.
>>
>> Yves
>>
>> Le 24 juillet 2020 20:11:46 GMT+02:00, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>
>> a écrit :
>>>
>>> All this talk about databases and servers and sysadmins makes me wonder
>>> if we should reconsider our choice of operating systems and databases.
>>>
>>> At one time in the past I ran a Database support group that covered
>>> Sybase, Oracle, Microsoft SQL server, ingres and half a dozen other
>>> database systems.
>>>
>>> The UNIX side, some twenty or so servers ran software that in theory
>>> monitored the databases.  In practise it never really was upto date.
>>> Microsoft also had a very nice monitoring tool that monitored and suggested
>>> solutions.  I've dropped an example report below.
>>>
>>> We ran probably fifty SQL server database servers and I spent quite a lot
>>> of time maxing the memory on a server then consolidating servers.  Towards
>>> the end we had far more data running on SQL server than we did on the UNIX
>>> side.  The servers were cheaper for the same performance for a start.
>>>
>>> Many of the UNIX based servers had default passwords set which made
>>> security a problem.  Fortunately they were protected by an air gap from the
>>> Internet.
>>>
>>> We had an IBM mainframe in the mix with an old database on it.  The
>>> programmers gradually retired.  I was lucky and identified another
>>> government department that was switching away from it and we managed to
>>> grab a handful of programmers etc from them.  Then a couple of years later
>>> that DBA retired.  You need to think of the future.  Will I be able to get
>>> knowledgeable staff if I need to?  We had to pay the company to run a
>>> special course in Ottawa and that was not cheap by the time we put the
>>> trainer up in a hotel and paid his airfare from the states.
>>>
>>> Initially the Microsoft side suffered from lack of security but they
>>> hardened the operating system and SQL server to a point where it was the
>>> most secure combination.  Microsoft SQL server was originally Sybase but
>>> got completely rewritten over time.
>>>
>>> On the support side my staff found that once we had set the permissions
>>> to an operating system group we just had to add people to the group.  For
>>> other databases each person had to be given permissions individually which
>>> made for finger problems.  The classic was one secure database that was
>>> supposed to be accessed operationally by 300 people. The problem was there
>>> were 600 accounts and no one knew which ones were needed or which could be
>>> deleted to reduce the surface area for attack.
>>>
>>> The integrated Microsoft monitoring system made reliability much better.
>>> There were far fewer problems on the Microsoft SQL side than on the UNIX /
>>> other database side and they were easier to fix.  One of my less expert
>>> database admins was shocked by the ease of which he caught the problem and
>>> corrected it by himself after an alert.  It gave him a bit of confidence as
>>> well.
>>>
>>> We changed to PostgreSQL in 2009.  The size of the database was much
>>> smaller then.
>>>
>>> One thing we noticed was on the database tuning side.  SQL server worked
>>> better if you just left it alone and didn't try to tune it.  It would check
>>> what was in memory rather than go out to the disk drives and that made a
>>> big difference to performance.  We measure disk access in milliseconds and
>>> memory access in nanoseconds.  One is ten thousand times smaller than the
>>> other.
>>>
>>> On the reliability side there is a set of guidelines that are basically
>>> common sense.  I forget the formal (ISO?) name but many organisations have
>>> seen considerable savings in money and in reliability by using them.  I met
>>> the English guy who originated them at a Microsoft presentation.  They can
>>> be applied to any environment.
>>>
>>> I think we either run the largest PostgreSQL database there is or it is
>>> close to it.  From a reliability point of view my professional hat says
>>> this is not where you want to be. You want to be more mainstream with
>>> someone else being on the bleeding edge.
>>>
>>> So the heresy would be look at the implications of changing to Microsoft
>>> SQL server in the cloud.  There is lots of documentation and given that
>>> Microsoft has worked closely with us in the past the cost might not be too
>>> bad.  I do understand that we have a large investment in our current set up
>>> both as an organisation and personally and many will consider this as
>>> heresy but now is probably the time to think about it.
>>>
>>> Cheerio John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> Envoyé de mon appareil Android avec Courriel K-9 Mail. Veuillez excuser ma
>> brièveté.
>>

-- 
Envoyé de mon appareil Android avec Courriel K-9 Mail. Veuillez excuser ma brièveté.
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