In this post, we’ll use a blog poll to find out what operating system you use to run your development database servers.

In our last blog poll, we looked at what OS you use for your production database. Now we would like to see what you use for your development database.

As databases grow to meet more challenges and expanding application demands, they must try and get the maximum amount of performance out of available resources. How they work with an operating system can affect many variables, and help or hinder performance. The operating system you use for your database can impact consumable choices (such as hardware and memory). The operating system you use can also impact your choice of database engine as well (or vice versa).

When new projects, new applications or services or testing new architecture …

In this post, we’ll use a blog poll to find out what operating system you use to run your production database servers.

As databases grow to meet more challenges and expanding application demands, they must try and get the maximum amount of performance out of available resources. How they work with an operating system can affect many variables, and help or hinder performance. The operating system you use for your database can impact consumable choices (such as hardware and memory). The operation system you use can also impact your choice of database engine as well (or vice versa).

Please let us know what operating system you use to run your database. For this poll, we’re asking which operating system you use to actually run your production database server (not the base operating system).

If you’re running …

Today we discovered a particularly subtle way of fucking up a server restart. After a routine configuration change and RPM upgrade, a colleague tried to restart an important master. That failed. The message: CODE: root@master ~]# /etc/init.d/mysql start
Starting MySQLCouldn't find MySQL manager (//bin/mysqlmanag[FAILED]erver (//bin/mysqld_safe)
The colleague tried multiple times, and finally resorted to manually typing a CODE: nohup mysqld_safe ... into a screen console, which he detached.

That took care of production for now and left us with an investigation. Why is the init script trying to start the MySQL manager?

It is not, and never tried to. What happen?


Continue reading "Fighting the mysqld init script" …

Topics for this podcast:

*Oracle, Java, the Apache Software Foundation and open source
*An update on some open source database and data management players
*CorraTech grows with support for open source application alternatives
*Red Hat-Makara acquisition analysis and impact
*Linux kernel report shows strong support, but what now for Novell?

iTunes or direct download (29:31, 5.1MB)

Topics for this podcast:

*Jacobsen v. Katzer and open source impact
*Intel, Nokia team up for MeeGo open source OS
*Open source continues in embedded space
*MongoDB and the advent of the NoSQL databases
*Copyrights, complexities, control and conflict

iTunes or direct download (21:48, 6.07 MB)

Even when it is being repeated once more it is not true: Stripping binaries using the ‘strip’ utility can also significantly reduce the memory footprint of the application claims John Coggeshall.

While it is true that a file is smaller on disk after a strip, a quick run of "size" on a binary will show you that the actual binary part of the file is unchanged. Let's have a quick look at /proc/pid/maps to understand what happens.

Continue reading "Notes on VM"

Oprofile is a profiling tool that requires no instrumentation and can profile an entire system. Binaries with symbol tables (-g compiled binaries) and an uncompressed Kernel with symbol table are helpful.

Oprofile is capable of monitoring and analyzing a running -g compiled mysqld and can tell you which functions are using the most CPU time.

Sample output:
CODE:CPU: CPU with timer interrupt, speed 0 MHz (estimated)
Profiling through timer interrupt
samples  %        image name               symbol name
…