Besides, there is a good reason why Oracle introduced this into their
product, and I don't think it was for server-based dbs.  I think that Oracle
introduced it for embedded systems.  This is the only reason that I can
think of for moving away from the file system.  As we don't really cater for
embedded systems, I don't see any reason to do this.  There is a lot of
stuff that the file system does for us that a raw device doesn't, which we
would then have to write :-(

MikeA

-----Original Message-----
From: The Hermit Hacker
To: Ing. Pavel PaJaSoft Janousek
Cc: merlin@scl.cwru.edu; pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org
Sent: 99/12/06 04:44
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] RAW I/O device

On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, Ing. Pavel PaJaSoft Janousek wrote:

> > other systems besides linux.  Making the DB work w/ one FS (and
write the
> > storage code for it) seems pointless if we are still stuck on normal
FSs
> > on other machines.
> 
> 	Yes, of course, but storing databases directly to RAW device -
not
> through the filesystem - is one feature of modern DB engines...

Actually, Oracle has been moving *away* from this...more recent versions
of Oracle recommend using the Operating System file systems, since, in
most cases, the Operating System does a better job, and its too
difficult
to have Oracle itself optimize internal for all the different variants
that it supports....

At work, we use Oracle extensively, and I sat down one day last year
with
our Oracle DBA to discuss exactly this...and, if I recall correctly, it
was prompted by a similar thread here...

If Linux is providing an Interface into the RAW file system, then this
may
change things for Oracle, since it wouldn't have to "learn" all the
different OSs, as long as the API is the same across them all...and, my
experience with Linux is that the API for Linux will most likely be
different then everyone else *roll eyes*

Marc G. Fournier                   ICQ#7615664               IRC Nick:
Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary:
scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org 


************

Mon, 6 Dec 1999 22:05:54 +0200 
"Ansley, Michael" <Michael.Ansley@intec.co.za>
RE: [HACKERS] RAW I/O device