I have been monitoring the forums regarding a potential issue with Firebird
1.52 Super Server, and I believe that it is not an issue related
specifically to the database server software, but to the way in which it is
used.

A collegue of mine recently stopped using Firebird for a mission critical,
transactional application because they found that the performance of the
database was good most of the time, but in some cases the database appeared
to have 'stalled' and was taking 30 seconds or more to process a simple
query. This seemed to coincide with the CPU on the server running at 100%
utilization with Firebird taking the majority of the horsepower of the box.

I suspect that the problem may have been in the way that their architecture
was setup, as we have never seen this behavior with our applications. Mind
you, all of our applications are built around stored procedures, and all run
on Windows 2000 servers, with Firebird 1.52 Super Server. I believe their
hardware platform/OS was Windows 2003 SBS with Firebird 1.52 Super Server
using a .NET provider from their client applications to the database. They
were not using Stored procedures at all. In our case, we are either using
PHP or we are using Delphi with native API through FIBPlus for the
connectivity.

We are currently working on a large, transactional application as well and I
want to be sure that we won't land in the same position as my collegue did.
Are there specific instructions that have been learned through the 'school
of hard knocks' that ensure one doesn't create a situation in Firebird where
it goes into a 100% CPU utilization mode? I'm still unsure as to the cause
of this, but would prefer to devote time to avoid this situation rather than
respond to it, if and when it occurs.

I would also like to hear any success stories regarding high volume,
transactional client/server applications with Firebird 1.5x on the backend.
It would sure help to hear the glories that people are getting with this,
amongst the negative issues.

All feedback on this greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Myles

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Myles Wakeham
Director of Engineering
Tech Solutions Inc.
Scottsdale, Arizona USA
Phone (480) 451-7440
Web: www.techsol.org