Which database system?

[FatPiper]

Hi there,

First a bit of background:
I am building a system that needs to support approximately 5,000 users logging in, logging out, and being tracked through their every movement through the site each hour. Reliability is a HUGE concern of mine, but obviously so is speed, because I need it to cope with the considerable number of users.

My Question:
Which free / open source database system should I use? (commercial ones will not be considered...) The current ones I know of and am considering:
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- Sybase
- GNU SQL
- Any others that would be good? ...

A similar thread involving the language to be used is available here:
http://www.sitepointforums.com/showt...threadid=55220

Thanks for your help,

Dan Cook

[hillsy]

Don't forget Firebird/Interbase.

[FatPiper]

What advantages does Firebird/Interbase have over, say, MySQL? or Postgres?

I am simply trying to determine what to do...

[hillsy]

I haven't actually tried it, though I certainly mean to.

I don't know it has any major advantages over Postgres or Sybase. However it looks to be better than MySQL in the following areas:

Foreign key support
Stored procedures
Subqueries
Client interface

[Flawless_koder]

Postgres

Flawless

[FatPiper]

Hmm ... Why is it flawless? Why would I use it? Can you please provide any more explanation?

[Flawless_koder]

Actually... not really.
I was going to when i first posted it, but
i couldn't really put my finger on it.

There's always a couple of "sects" in Computing,
for everything.

Processors:
AMD vs. intel

O/S's:
Windows vs. Mac

Server O/S's:
Linux vs. ... ... hang on .. it hasn't got any competitors!

and the same goes for rdbms.

I trust PgSQL, and it's very very fast.
It's opensource and i like the Pg module
for perl and Mason.

< / two cents worth >

Flawless

[MattR]

If you can break your requirements down into something a little more concrete... Then it might help.

These 5,000 users.. Will they all log in at the same time? How many pages per second will you be showing on average? What queries do you suspect will be common to each user (e.g. what entails user tracking exactly?)?

How much 'uptime' do you need for your application? 24/7 or can it be down for maintenance? If 24/7, be sure to get a database with on-line backup capability so you don't have to do costly shutdowns or lock the DB while you backup.

How big do you expect the database to get (how many GB?). How large (# rows) to you expect the largest of the tables to get?

What hardware will the DB be running on? Why are commercial RDBMS' out of the question? Oftentimes you get what you pay for.