<<
I'd be interested to talk to anyone that is running similar large
systems. What hardware they are using and how they have it tweaked.

>>

Maybe Dalton Calford (Distributel, Canada). Perhaps there is an
updated version of his "Some solutions to old problems" (which now is
about 10 years old!). This paper was meant to address concerns of
running large databases with very high activity 24x7, IIRC.
He is an occasional poster on these lists.

--
Aage J.