Date: Wed, 20 Mar 96 11:57:48 MET From: Greg Lehey <lehey.pad@sni.de> To: brandon@tombstone.sunrem.com (Brandon Gillespie) Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: database filesystems, BSD worth it? Just go SCO? Message-ID: <199603201100.MAA19419@nixpbe.pdb.sni.de> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.960319092433.24314A-100000@tombstone.sunrem.com>; from "Brandon Gillespie" at Mar 19, 96 9:34 am
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> We are running a database system in unix on PCs, currently running > Unixware. Our experience has been a nightmare, to say the least. We are > now in the position to upgrade our database driver, and we have been > considering taking the opportunity to upgrade the operating system as well. Well, a lot of people jumped in on this one, didn't they? What were the problems with UnixWare? > My current dillemma is that there is 'general knowledge' floating around > that the SCO/Unixware filesystem is basically the best for running a > database system on, I don't think SCO has *anything* going for it, except possibly that the software was written on that platform. SCO uses (or used, last time I saw it), something home grown called afs, which is basically a modified s5fs (System V file system), which is itself a warmed over Seventh Edition File System. afs does have better performance than s5fs, but so does just about anything else. UnixWare, on the other hand, uses either ufs (UNIX File System, originally called the Berkeley Fast File System), or vxfs (Veritas File System). My experience has been that vxfs has been very unreliable and is a pig to maintain. I haven't compared performance. UFS works OK. As the old name implies, it comes from BSD. Not surprisingly, it is also the standard file system on all BSD variants. > whereas the BSD filesystem is not... I'm wondering > if there are any facts anywhere to solidify/refute this claim? Also, is > it possible to run different 'style's of BSD filesystems in FreeBSD? I suppose you're referring to virtual file systems, such as vxfs, ufs, nfs, rfs and cdfs (is that the name) under UnixWare. Yes, FreeBSD has a number of file systems, though there's only one (ufs) for hard disks. I don't see any advantage in having vxfs as well under UnixWare, though vjfs (Veritas Journalling File System) would appear to offer some advantages if it were offered. BTW, although ufs on System V is derived from BSD, they have modified it enough that you will not be able to mount a System V ufs file system on FreeBSD: you'll have to rebuild it. > Perhaps one which is more capable of handling a database system? I know > that in unixware we use the 'VFS' filesystem, versus what it is by default... Ah, this is vxfs, I suppose. See my comments above. Out of interest, what does "General Knowledge" say about ufs on System V? > (BTW, the database system we use is 'Progress') On the whole, I think I could thoroughly recommend ufs on any platform. I don't feel as confident about recommending FreeBSD for a database system. First, support for COFF (the SCO object file format) is incomplete, and there doesn't seem to be much interest in improving it. Support for ELF (the native UnixWare object file format) is there and is being actively worked on, but the emphasis is more on compatibility with Linux than with UnixWare. UnixWare also supports COFF executables, so it's possible that your Progress stuff is really in COFF. Use the 'file' program to tell you. Greg ------------------------------------------------------------ Greg Lehey LEMIS grog@lemis.de Schellnhausen 2 Tel: +49-6637-919123 36325 Feldatal Fax: +49-6637-919122 Germany
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