Re: [PHP] [JOB OFFER] contractor wanted for PHP project! From: Adam Powell (adam <email protected>)
Date: 09/26/00

Hi there, thanks for the reply.

We originally did start with mySQL last November, and it worked great. In
fact I did not want to move to Oracle at all, however there were some issues
with mySQL that meant we could not use it any more... and if these were
sorted out we would love to change back :)

When I say 300 connections, its 300 connections per web server and we have
around 24 of them... our first problem was that we had problems getting
mySQL to manage more than 1000 connections due to the number of open files
in a 32 bit system. We changed this max from 1024 to 2048, but then ran
into some other linux kernel based problems that gave us really bad
performance.

The biggest problem however was table locking. We currently do around 6500
sql executions per second at peak, on tables with over 3 million rows in,
and because mySQL uses table locking the entire database would just hit a
deadlock, and that was in February, so that was at around 1,000 executions
per second. We had a table called market_stock that would hold all the
items a person had in their shop, then we had to split this into 8 sub
tables market_stock_1 to 8. This wasnt the perfect scenario because of the
increased maintenace, and the lack of scalability. We were told that Oracle
handled tables that did UPDATEs and SELECTs at the same times better due to
the fact it used row locking.

We are currently offloading a lot of the work onto mySQL also, all the
stats, chat boards, and neomessages on the site are handled by two dual 700s
running mysql 3.23. Each page connects to like 4 database machines now, its
getting a bit ridiculous :)

Anyway, so the aim is to build a connection pooling into the PHP OCI8 module
to reduce the overhead generated by all these connections into Oracle, so if
anybody has any idea let us know :)

Thanks,
Adam Powell,
Neopets.Com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Cameron" <cameron <email protected>>
To: "Adam Powell" <adam <email protected>>; "mysql" <mysql <email protected>>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 1:37 AM
Subject: Re: [PHP] [JOB OFFER] contractor wanted for PHP project!

> Hi Adam
>
> You need to give a bit more detail.
>
> Is the database application that you are running, dependent on
"transactions".
> If not, are you hell-bent on sticking with Oracle.
>
> One of the claims to fame of MySQL is its speed. You talk about persistent
> connections of 300. MySQL comes stock standard set for 100.
>
> Before embarking on getting an Oracle programmer on board, I would
consider
> whether or not you have the right tools for the job. If the pages you are
> serving are a regurgitation of data from the database, then you are
probably
> not using the right engine. My query, if I were you, would not be to find
an
> Oracle programmer, but to find someone who can deal to your real problem -
> delivery of data from a database to web pages at the rate demanded. I
suspect
> that at the end of the day you will opt for someone who can convert your
> current database over to MySQL - only because it appears that speed is
your
> problem abd MySQL delivers results much faster than any other database
engine -
> so I am led to believe.
>
> If you want some real direction from this mailing list as to the solution
to
> your problem, I suggest that you post a few more details about the data
being
> served up, the hardware that you have delivering it, and the supporting
> programs around it. You will find this list more than accommodating in
steering
> you in the right direction.
>
> Regards
> Martin Cameron
>
> Adam Powell wrote:
>
> > Hi, we are looking for a PHP contractor (possibly not just one) to help
us
> > with a current project.
> >
> > We have a large oracle database, and we are using OCI8 to connect from
> > PHPv4.0.0, and our database is dying due to the sheer number of
connections.
> > The current OCI module does not have connection pooling, so each of our
> > apache servers is making 300 persistant connections to Oracle. The site
in
> > question does over 50 million pageviews a day, and connections are
proving
> > to be a MAJOR bottleneck in our growth.
> >
> > Basically, we need people who have experience in this area to help us
create
> > a OCI8/apache connection pooling module. If anybody is interested
please
> > get in touch. We are located in Glendale, LA, and will pay for
> > travel/accomodation expenses plus generous compensation.
> >
> > Thanks a lot,
> > Adam Powell,
> > Neopets.Com
> >
> > --
> > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-general-unsubscribe <email protected>
> > For additional commands, e-mail: php-general-help <email protected>
> > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin <email protected>
>
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please check "http://www.mysql.com/documentation/manual.php" before
> posting. To request this thread, e-mail mysql-thread51653 <email protected>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to:
> <mysql-unsubscribe-noirotr=forges-courcelles.fr <email protected>>
>
> If you have a broken mail client that cannot send a message to
> the above address (Microsoft Outlook), you can use:
> http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
>
> 

-- 
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-general-unsubscribe <email protected>
For additional commands, e-mail: php-general-help <email protected>
To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin <email protected>