[Info-vax] Databases versus RMS

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 4/17/2012 2:52 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
> A web forum has been down for over 24 hours now because of a power
> failure. Seems their database "broke".
>
> Since there are few teenagers here, I figured I might get some "senior"
> opinions.
>
> Are database engines so fragile that a power failure will truly wreak
> havok on a database requiring time consuming work and debugging ?

Some are.  Some are not.  The expensive ones, e.g. Oracle, should 
survive without problems.

My failing memory recalls something that was called "two phase commit" 
or something like that.  You write what you're going to do and then you 
do it. On a successful commit, you mark the transaction complete.  If 
your commit fails, you have all the pieces necessary to recover.

>
> Or is this more of a question of young inexperienced web geeks setting
> up some forum software without selecting the right database options and
> not realising that letting a database keep everything in cache (writing
> later when it has time) is a recipe for disaster ?
>