> > Of course, a bigger box running PostgreSQL is still cheaper and
> > easier to maintain than multiple replicated servers.
>
> Cheaper? Look at the prices for two 2-cpu machines, and compare that to
>the price of one 4-cpu machine. You can get nicely equipped dual-CPU
>machines for what, $4,000 or $5,000 total? When you get into the 4-way
>machines, you'll pay that much just for the motherboard and chassis - and
>you still have thousands left to spend on the processers themselves.
>
> Besides that, two 2-CPU machines can perform much, much better than a
>single 4-way machine, because you only have half of the processers
>fighting for I/O.
>
>steve
>
Yes - but the cost of the TOTAL SOLUTION - which includes replication
software, sysadmin time, programming time and testing, etc - is still
in my experience cheaper with one big database box than two smaller
boxes, if your only purpose is to get more thruput for the $$. This
is subject to change, of course.
Hardware is cheap. People are expensive. :^)
My preferred approach has been a big DB box and an array of
webservers connecting to it.
Elaine Lindelef
