I'm not ruling out the idea of running with a separate linux box, but there are some strong reasons to stick with the MS box. So, your point is well taken.
That aside, however, I still need to draw from various people's experience to get a feel for any problems that may arise when running next to MS SQL Server. I've heard that Postgresql is a task that runs with "Normal" priority, and can therefore not lock up the machine to the point where it's not recoverable. In contrast, I've heard as well that MS SQL Server does indeed run as a high priority task and will take precedence when the OS doles out CPU resources.
How is it possible for Postgresql to "freak out" and take out the machine?
How easy/likely is it for a program run as a normal user to blue screen an MS server?
How easy/likely is it for a program run as a normal user to do the equiv to a FreeBSD/Linux server?
You can also effectively take out a machine by using too much memory and going into swap death-spiral.
I'm not sure if it is easy to limit Postgresql memory usage "gracefully" on an MS box. AFAIK you can do memory limits on Linux/Unix boxes.
MS built-in task manager doesn't let you kill all processes. You need 3rd party tools to do the equiv of kill -9. But of course you shouldn't kill -9 postgresql. Which brings us to something I don't know the answer of - what's the safe way of terminating postgresql on a MS server?
Regards, Link.
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