database performance - Java Linux Databases

database performance: Java Linux Databases: Introduction

We present the most interesting findings obtained from comparing some of the most common Java/Database platform combinations.

These results were obtained after extensive testing and should be of interrest to even the most experienced Java/J2EE developers.

The core principles are:

Fairness and simplicity of the tests
Default "out of the box" performance

For more details see the setup processs.

The database products tested are (links to the setup page for each product):

MySQL version 5.0
PostgreSQL version 8.1
Firebird version 1.5 and 2.0
Sybase SQL Anywhere version 10
Informix version 10
DB2 version 9.1

The Java Virtual Machines tested are:

Sun Microsystems 1.5 and 1.6
IBM 1.5
BEA 1.5

We continually tested many combinations of all of the above software on a Fedora Core 6 system with a selection of Linux kernels (from 2.6.16 to 2.6.20).

Although these tests are not designed to be a simulation of real life database usage, the results do show general performance characteristics from each component, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.

The setup guide is also quite useful for those who want to evaluate a new database using JDBC.

All the code used for obtaining these results is available for free under the GPL.