mysql vs oracle

[fmtaylor2]

Number of hosts (monitored/not monitored/templates) 390 296 / 79 / 15
Number of items (monitored/disabled/not supported) 58789 24858 / 33498 / 433
Number of triggers (enabled/disabled)[true/unknown/false] 27034 18782 / 8252 [44 / 540 / 18198]
Number of users (online) 37
Required server performance, new values per second 353.9261 -

Here is my situation. I filled up my zabbix database with over 400G of data. I was asked to look into switching to an oracle database maintained by our DBA's so they could "deal with it" and I would not have to any longer. This effort is not progressing well.

under zabbix 1.6.8 We started my migrating the MySQL database to Oracle. It took forever to load the data and correct the errors, but this was mostly working. However it was very slow and a little "flakey". My DBA said it was trying to do a lot of transactions involving ID's and generally waiting for the database to catch up. (at least that was my understanding). There seemed to be a patch, but for 1.6.5, that would not apply and since I am no C programmer I could not insert it by hand.

I there for decided to just upgrade to zabbix 1.8 which promised better oracle support and some database optimizations. we patched the oracle database for 1.8 and I put in the new front end, and I compiled up the 1.8 version of zabbix. With a couple of minor tweeks to the php frontend I managed to get it to work, but just barely. It is really slow, and this is without the actual zabbix server portion running.

I am having trouble getting the actual zabbix server to start and I suspect that I will have to make or get some kind of modification to the standard install to make it go. When I try to start it up I am getting the "[Z3001] Connection to database '//oradb03-dev.itap.purdue.edu:1522/zabbxdev' failed: [-1] ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified" error. I am using the same parameters in the server that I am using in the front end, so it should work.

This all leads me to the question, am I wasting my time chasing this oracle solution? will I see better performance from oracle than I do from mysql?

It seems at this point that I should just do an xml dump of whatever I can, wipe the database and start over with a fresh install of zabbix 1.8 with mysql and spend the time cleaning up rather than try to preserve the data and and chase the dubious Oracle solution.

Opinions?

[jansonz]

TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified is an oracle client error. This has nothing to do with Zabbix.

Is tnsping working to your database from zabbix user? Is everything ok in tnsnames.ora file?

[fmtaylor2]

tnsping

[root@boris zabbix-1.8]# tnsping zabbxdev

TNS Ping Utility for Linux: Version 10.2.0.1.0 - Production on 22-DEC-2009 10:16:57

Copyright (c) 1997, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Used parameter files:
/home/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/network/admin/sqlnet.ora

Used LDAP adapter to resolve the alias
Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION=(SOURCE_ROUTE=OFF)(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDR ESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=oradb03-dev.itap.purdue.edu)(PORT=1522)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SI D=zabbxdev)(SERVER=DEDICATED)))
OK (10 msec)

I

[jansonz]

In your post I see, that you are using tnsping from root user. try to use it from zabbix user. Maby in zabbix user there is no ORACLE_HOME variable?

[zabbix_zen]

fmtaylor2 any progress so far?

I've also been asked to port my mysql install to an ORACLE one.
Was also thinking of upgrading the 1.6.x system to an 1.8 and converting it to ORACLE.

[fmtaylor2]

I Gave Up.

I have decided not to pursue Zabbix with oracle. There are a few reasons for this. First our oracle machines have other databases on them and zabbix wants or needs the database engine to itself. Second, the oracle database does not have good response time. And third, it does not seem to be as plug and play, or ready for prime time as zabbix with MySQL. I may revisit it in the future, but for now I have decided that a standalone mysql server dedicated to zabbix is the best solution.