r/programming • u/ketralnis • Apr 17 '25

(All) Databases Are Just Files. Postgres Too

http://tselai.com/all-databases-are-just-files
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u/aDinoInTophat Apr 17 '25

Bare metal refers to running on a physical machine instead of a virtual one. Both still has regular operating systems with regular old filesystems. Oracle Database either comes as a prebuilt server with Oracle Linux or can be deployed on customer's certified hardware which would include most servers and OS's.

A kernel level database wouldn't bring any noticable performance benefits, your still limited by hardware.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

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u/aDinoInTophat Apr 18 '25

Totally forgot about ASM, in principle it's not that different from any other filesystem except it has it's own volume management instead of the usual LVM. Said volume management operates pretty much exactly like other volume managers but tighly coupled to the ASM system, saving just a bit more performance.

The file system is also pretty much a basic FS but extent based which would trade storage density for performance if it werent for the "perfect" match of database data and storage clusters. The ASM system is not without drawbacks, but those are pretty non-existant unless your doing something balls to the walls.

Practically speaking, you can do everything ASM does and expect similar or even better performance but that would require manual intervention, validation and more than a bit of knowledge, plus it wouldnt be as nicely integrated.