Hey All,

I need some starting advice for a school project.

I am currently starting a theme on school that teaches me the works on Operating Systems.
During this theme, we have to build a fault-tolerant system that can process up to 8000 XML files/queries per second to store and process the data.(Viewing and selecting the data is not included in that 8000)

The system to use.
I have a 64bit (Intel Q6600, 4GB-RAM, SATA2 Disks in RAID) quadcore server at home which I would like use for this project, and would like to use a Linux-oriented OS for it.(But Windows is an option as well if it would get me better results)
Note: I could also request a Playstation 3 from school if the above server is not enough.

Database Type(Max queries per second?) VS System Performance(Max queries per second?)
As I read somewhere, the amount of queries per second is defined by system performance instead the database system you use? So now, I am searching for the best brute performance OS out there. My goal is to secretly impress the rest to try to get even get above that 8k of queries per second.

Last but not least
Another thing that came to my mind is that the distro should have a minimal of "standard" active threads, should run on a 64bit system (So good hardware compatibility is required) or good 32bit alternative and should make efficient use of the 4 available cores if thats needed.

So the question is: Which Database System/OS combination should I use?.

I know there could be info on google, but I want to hear more personal experiences and advices and interact with those with some real passion .


Greetings,

I used to work for these guys:
http://www.aleri.com/cep/aleri-streaming-platform

Their software is throughput orientated, as opposed to conventional DB's that are more concerned with transactional integrity, etc.
They support Red Hat and won't charge you for a time restricted only (ie full featured) license for non-commercial usage. They'll be happy to give you extension to the license if needed.
They have an eclipse based gui development environment, if you know SQL you will have no problems getting your head around their software.

I supported this stuff being used to give real-time reports on bank positions, using similar hardware to that which you have.
If you imagine the number of transactions going through a major bank then you'll get the idea. A conventional DB/reporting system would otherwise do these reports overnight.