Re: PostgreSQL on Novell Netware 6.5. - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

>> > They stopped at 7.2.4 because "they're finishing some usefull APIs,
>> > which'll make the port much more "easy"."
>>
>> Will this involve using a Linux kernel ;)
> 
> :) No, a NW kernel with a POSIX library. This'll be great, because
> :you'll can run powerfull opensource software with an enterprise-class
> NOS. Another option...
       Well, the "pthreads" seem to be working just fine.
       For all my work that most people would do in C/C++, I do in assembler, 
and the POSIX support in NetWare now is providing some very nice APIs in 
NetWare 6.0 and 6.5 that simply weren't available on NetWare 4.x and 
earlier (NetWare 5.x has some of this, and Novell has been working hard to 
move in this direction).

> Clustering support (32 x 32), stable & consistent file system (Novell's
> Storage System, forget the old Tradition File System (very mature &
> stable, but it doesn't fit the current storage necessity)), security &
> stability (our servers is counting 700+ days).
       I hosted over 500 internet sites (HTTP (Apache), DNS, SMTP/POP3, FTP, 
NNTP, Oracle, various Java services, PERL, etc.) on NetWare 5 across two 
different /24 address spaces, and the server (yes, all of this was done 
with a single Pentium III server with 512 MBs of RAM) was fast and reliable 
with minimal maintenance.
       The new file system (NSS) cuts down the boot time since volume mounts 
always complete in less than 1 second as opposed to the "Traditional File 
System" (TFS) which required approximately 5 to 10 minutes to mount.
       NSS is a journaling system, which I've not been able to break yet by 
simulating power outages during busy times.  When the next release of 
PostgreSQL is ready for NetWare, I'm going to try to break it in this way 
as well (by making it very busy with many simultaneous write, index, and 
vacuum operations before "pulling the plug").  So far I've found that 
Oracle 8i on NetWare was quite good at handling this and the worst that 
ever happened (at least in my testing) was that there was a cut-off point 
where newly written records were lost.
       I'm not pleased with Oracle's decision to discontinue support for 
NetWare, and PostgreSQL fits that void very well (except for not having 
table spaces, but I can live with that), and so I anxiously await the new 
version of PostgreSQL so that I can proceed with some rather large web-
based projects that have been in the planning and research stages for 
approximately 3 years now.
       Unfortunately I simply can't use MySQL because they don't have views, 
and there are some data integrity problems (e.g., numbers getting truncated 
silently instead of an error being returned, etc.).

> It's a valuable addition to the Novell community, but it's also an good
> addition to the PostgreSQL community, but of course, when everything is
> 100% done. ;)
       I agree wholeheartedly that both the Novell and PostgreSQL user and 
developer communities will benefit greatly from this.  From a marketing 
perspective, both organizations will also benefit by gaining additional 
exposure.

-- 
Randolf Richardson - rr@8x.ca
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Please do not eMail me directly when responding
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