FW: Postgres alongside MS SQL Server

[Anony Mous]

Hi,

We've got some clients that are concerned about running Postgresql 7.3.4 on
a Win2k Server box, alongside MS SQL Server. I've been running pg on my XP
machines for a long time now (with cygwin) and never had any sort of
problem. The db is fast and stable.

Does anyone have any experience that would give some weight to our client's
concerns? Would there be any potential conflict between the postmaster and
MS SQL Server? Your experience and advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Peter
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[Joshua D. Drake]

Hello,

Well it of course depends on what you are doing. Traditionally I would
say, "Are you nuts?" but it really depends
on what you are doing. It is all about risk... if PostgreSQL freaks out
and takes out the machine, what will happen
to the MS SQL server? What about cost associated with downtime?

The same goes for if the MS SQL server takes out the machine? How
important is what PostgreSQL is doing?

Considering you could put together a box that will outperform
PostgreSQL/Cgwin running Linux for about 700 bucks.
Why not just get a new machine and not risk the exposure?

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake
Anony Mous wrote:

Hi,

We've got some clients that are concerned about running Postgresql 7.3.4 on
a Win2k Server box, alongside MS SQL Server. I've been running pg on my XP
machines for a long time now (with cygwin) and never had any sort of
problem. The db is fast and stable.

Does anyone have any experience that would give some weight to our client's
concerns? Would there be any potential conflict between the postmaster and
MS SQL Server? Your experience and advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Peter
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Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
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[Joshua D. Drake]

Hello,

Well it of course depends on what you are doing. Traditionally I would
say, "Are you nuts?" but it really depends
on what you are doing. It is all about risk... if PostgreSQL freaks out
and takes out the machine, what will happen
to the MS SQL server? What about cost associated with downtime?

The same goes for if the MS SQL server takes out the machine? How
important is what PostgreSQL is doing?

Considering you could put together a box that will outperform
PostgreSQL/Cgwin running Linux for about 700 bucks.
Why not just get a new machine and not risk the exposure?

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake
Anony Mous wrote:

Hi,

We've got some clients that are concerned about running Postgresql 7.3.4 on
a Win2k Server box, alongside MS SQL Server. I've been running pg on my XP
machines for a long time now (with cygwin) and never had any sort of
problem. The db is fast and stable.

Does anyone have any experience that would give some weight to our client's
concerns? Would there be any potential conflict between the postmaster and
MS SQL Server? Your experience and advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Peter
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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http://archives.postgresql.org

--
Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
[phone] - [e-mail] - http://www.commandprompt.com
PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL
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[Michael Chaney]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 09:40:55PM -0600, Anony Mous wrote:

Hi,

We've got some clients that are concerned about running Postgresql 7.3.4 on
a Win2k Server box, alongside MS SQL Server. I've been running pg on my XP
machines for a long time now (with cygwin) and never had any sort of
problem. The db is fast and stable.

Does anyone have any experience that would give some weight to our client's
concerns? Would there be any potential conflict between the postmaster and
MS SQL Server? Your experience and advice would be greatly appreciated.

No, but it's irrelevant. Your clients are idiots who think they know
more about computers than you. You have three choices:

1. Use this as an opportunity to introduce them to low-cost,
highly-functional free Unix systems, i.e. Linux or BSD. They'll thank
you later.

2. Have "the talk" with them. I've done this twice in the last 10
years. Sit them down in a meeting, and simply ask "If you know more
about this than me, then it doesn't make sense that you're paying me
$100/hour to tell you stuff, does it? Do you give your attorney legal
advice, too?" Depends on the client, worked fine for me and in both cases the
clients started treating me very differently after that. I cannot imagine
giving my attorney legal advice, I have no idea why people see this
differently.

3. Convince them that it'll be okay. This is the last piece of advice
because it is the worst. Any time anything goes wrong with the machine
your postgres installation will be the culprit. And stuff will go wrong
daily, if you know what I mean.

It's a difficult situation when you have such clients, but use it as an
opportunity to learn more about doing business.

Michael
--
Michael Darrin Chaney
md******@michaelchaney.com
http://www.michaelchaney.com/

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[Michael Chaney]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 09:40:55PM -0600, Anony Mous wrote:

Hi,

We've got some clients that are concerned about running Postgresql 7.3.4 on
a Win2k Server box, alongside MS SQL Server. I've been running pg on my XP
machines for a long time now (with cygwin) and never had any sort of
problem. The db is fast and stable.

Does anyone have any experience that would give some weight to our client's
concerns? Would there be any potential conflict between the postmaster and
MS SQL Server? Your experience and advice would be greatly appreciated.

No, but it's irrelevant. Your clients are idiots who think they know
more about computers than you. You have three choices:

1. Use this as an opportunity to introduce them to low-cost,
highly-functional free Unix systems, i.e. Linux or BSD. They'll thank
you later.

2. Have "the talk" with them. I've done this twice in the last 10
years. Sit them down in a meeting, and simply ask "If you know more
about this than me, then it doesn't make sense that you're paying me
$100/hour to tell you stuff, does it? Do you give your attorney legal
advice, too?" Depends on the client, worked fine for me and in both cases the
clients started treating me very differently after that. I cannot imagine
giving my attorney legal advice, I have no idea why people see this
differently.

3. Convince them that it'll be okay. This is the last piece of advice
because it is the worst. Any time anything goes wrong with the machine
your postgres installation will be the culprit. And stuff will go wrong
daily, if you know what I mean.

It's a difficult situation when you have such clients, but use it as an
opportunity to learn more about doing business.

Michael
--
Michael Darrin Chaney
md******@michaelchaney.com
http://www.michaelchaney.com/

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[Lincoln Yeoh]

At 10:19 AM 4/28/2004 -0600, Anony Mous wrote:

I'm not ruling out the idea of running with a separate linux box, but there
are some strong reasons to stick with the MS box. So, your point is well
taken.

That aside, however, I still need to draw from various people's experience
to get a feel for any problems that may arise when running next to MS SQL
Server. I've heard that Postgresql is a task that runs with "Normal"
priority, and can therefore not lock up the machine to the point where it's
not recoverable. In contrast, I've heard as well that MS SQL Server does
indeed run as a high priority task and will take precedence when the OS
doles out CPU resources.

How is it possible for Postgresql to "freak out" and take out the machine?

How easy/likely is it for a program run as a normal user to blue screen an
MS server?
How easy/likely is it for a program run as a normal user to do the equiv to
a FreeBSD/Linux server?

You can also effectively take out a machine by using too much memory and
going into swap death-spiral.

I'm not sure if it is easy to limit Postgresql memory usage "gracefully" on
an MS box. AFAIK you can do memory limits on Linux/Unix boxes.

MS built-in task manager doesn't let you kill all processes. You need 3rd
party tools to do the equiv of kill -9. But of course you shouldn't kill -9
postgresql. Which brings us to something I don't know the answer of -
what's the safe way of terminating postgresql on a MS server?

Regards,
Link.

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[Lincoln Yeoh]

At 10:19 AM 4/28/2004 -0600, Anony Mous wrote:

I'm not ruling out the idea of running with a separate linux box, but there
are some strong reasons to stick with the MS box. So, your point is well
taken.

That aside, however, I still need to draw from various people's experience
to get a feel for any problems that may arise when running next to MS SQL
Server. I've heard that Postgresql is a task that runs with "Normal"
priority, and can therefore not lock up the machine to the point where it's
not recoverable. In contrast, I've heard as well that MS SQL Server does
indeed run as a high priority task and will take precedence when the OS
doles out CPU resources.

How is it possible for Postgresql to "freak out" and take out the machine?

How easy/likely is it for a program run as a normal user to blue screen an
MS server?
How easy/likely is it for a program run as a normal user to do the equiv to
a FreeBSD/Linux server?

You can also effectively take out a machine by using too much memory and
going into swap death-spiral.

I'm not sure if it is easy to limit Postgresql memory usage "gracefully" on
an MS box. AFAIK you can do memory limits on Linux/Unix boxes.

MS built-in task manager doesn't let you kill all processes. You need 3rd
party tools to do the equiv of kill -9. But of course you shouldn't kill -9
postgresql. Which brings us to something I don't know the answer of -
what's the safe way of terminating postgresql on a MS server?

Regards,
Link.

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