Achieving transaction scaleup on Unix

Constructing scalable high-performance applications on commodity hardware running the Unix operating system is a problem that must be addressed in several application domains. We relate our experience in achieving transaction scaleup on Unix for a high-performance OLTP system intended for Service Control Points (SCPs) in a telephone switching network. SCPs are but one example from a class of applications whose requirements cannot be properly handled by today´s commercial DBMSs. In addition to high throughput and low response time, SCPs require transaction scaleup on standard hardware and software. Using a main-memory DBMS to obtain high throughput, we focus on the problem of achieving transaction scaleup on a cluster of workstations running Unix while constrained by the low response time requirement of the SCP application