[Info-vax] Databases versus RMS

Jan-Erik Soderholm jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com
Thu Apr 19 03:51:14 EDT 2012


Dirk Munk wrote 2012-04-19 07:57:
> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Two phase commit was something else as far as I remember.

*IS*. It is not something that "was"... :-)

Had to shut it of in Rdb (default on) lataly to run against a local
Rdb file and a remote Oracle on a AIX system using the Transaparent
Gateway for Oracle in the same COBOL app since the Gateway
doesn't support 2PC. Setting a logical at build time (embed SQL)
fixed it.

Jan-Erik.

  Think of a
> central location where you have a complete database, and a branch office
> with a part of the database that is important for that office. All the
> database actions will be done on the local database of every office, and
> only when a transaction needs to be written to the databases, both database
> instances will communicate to insure that the information in both databases
> stays synchronised.
>
>>
>>>
>>> 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 ?
>>>
>>
>>
>




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