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From: vollmer@manta.UUCP (Tom Vollmer)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: database machines
Message-ID: <203@manta.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-May-87 22:56:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: manta.203
Posted: Sat May 30 22:56:19 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Jun-87 01:03:18 EDT
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 16

We went through a bit a agonizing a year or so ago.  There was a
heavily loaded VAX 11/780 also running a software RDBMS and complaints
about performance were the soup du jour.  We were seriously looking
at some database machines for the application, when the VAX was
upgraded to an 8600 for other reasons.  We piggy backed on the
upgrade and performance complaints disappeared, and no the 8600
has not been bogged during with increasing load during this year.

I do understand there are dedicated applications that make sense
for database engines but 1) sometimes its nice to have your applications
on general purpose systems and get a 'free' ride on a hardware
upgrade and 2) sometimes a faster CPU makes up for a lot of problems with
RDBMS and OS design.

Tom Vollmer (vollmer@nosc)
Computer Sciences Corporation3