We are running a couple of servers with 4 6-core Intel CPUs (no
hyperthreading so 24 cores available to linux) and 64 GB of RAM. We are
using 32 GB of the RAM as memory and the other 32 GB as a RAM disk for
the temp directory for Firebird. The system stores the DB on an iSCSI
SAN and it runs great.

-steve

On 4/28/2010 3:25 AM, bernard_cleary wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> ObjectMastery manage a large firebird database for one of our clients.
> The database is currently about 100gig and is about 8 years old. We
> are currently running firebird CS 2.1.2 on a linux box. We have 5 main
> servers. The primary server is a dual CPU quad core box with 64 gig
> ram and 12 SAS hard drives. The drives are set up into 2 areas. 10
> drives in raid 10 for the database and 2 drives in raid 0 for the temp
> directory and any other temporary data. This main server generally has
> around 300 users and about 30 to 40 active queries. It currently does
> about 3 million transactions a day mostly during the core hours of 8am
> to 6pm. It used to do as many as 10 million transactions a day but we
> used FBScanner to find a number of inefficient processes and we fixed
> them or moved them onto our secondary servers. We have a copy on four
> other servers which we keep up to date via replication. These servers
> run our larger reports. Some are equivalent to our main server and
> some are newer boxes with a single intel quad core (8 threads) and a
> mixture of Intel SSDs and SAS hard drives.
>
> Our main server is now nearly 3 years old so we are considering
> retiring it to less strenuous duties. My question is what should the
> replacement box be? What is the best hardware that Firebird can
> effectively use? With the new intel 8 core (16 thread) and AMD 12 core
> CPUs you can now get boxes with up to 64 cores (128 threads). You can
> also get up to a terabyte of ram. Both these numbers are going up
> quickly. The problem is I have never heard anyone running Firebird on
> anything above 16 cores. Does the plan for 2.5 and 3 allow for better
> utilisation of these new CPUs? My other thought is are SSDs worth it?
> If you can afford enough RAM the hard drive doesn't seem to be a major
> factor.
>
> 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.
>
> Bernard
>
>

--
Steve Wiser
President
Specialized Business Software
6325 Cochran Road, Unit 1
Solon, OH 44139

www.specializedbusinesssoftware.com
(440) 542-9145 - fax (440) 542-9143
Toll Free: (866) 328-4936




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