[dba-Tech] Any ideas

Why not use an Access .mdb?

Drew
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Reid" <mwp.reid at qub.ac.uk>
To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues"
<dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 9:32 AM
Subject: [dba-Tech] Any ideas


> Anyone have any ideas re the following?
>
> I have a system whereby each PC in the SCCs sends in one short line per
> minute to a central server. Each line is of the form IP address, time,
> date[, user id]. The central server is only a P450 with 256Mb memory but
> I have used a P733 with the same results.
>
> When a user logs in to a PC, it writes a line to the same file on the
> central server as all the other used PCs. Each PC writes at the same
> second each minute, but the PCs determine their second to write by
> chance, basically. Thus the incoming data for the file is reasonably
> well spread across 60 seconds.
>
> On the minute, the software on the central server renames the input
> file, thereby causing a new one to be created with the next record sent
> to it. The central file is held on a share to which each PC has to
> authenticate.
>
> When enough PCs are active, and I have not been able to deduce if there
> is a threshold figure for that number, some or most of a record may be
> lost. That can be seen from the input files.
>
> During stress tests, when my PC was the only system communicating with
> the server, My PC could send in about 630 lines per minute and none
> would be lost. And this over a period of say an hour. However, when
> multiple PCs send in lines, the data loss may arise with 50 PCs active.
> The difference is the number of active network connections.
>
> As I don't believe the data is being lost on the network (I have
> monitored this and have not seen losses so far), it is most likely being
> lost through the networking code/file system combination, and probably
> the former.
>
> I was wondering if anyone had a better method for collecting this
> asynchronous auditing information, one which did not lose data.
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