Applications
SHARE
Facebook X Pinterest WhatsApp

eHarmony Weds Oracle 10g

Oracle (Quote) on Monday announced that eHarmony, a leading online dating and match-making service, is now using the Oracle 10g database to play Cupid to more than 17 million love-starved users. While the actual transition from Microsoft’s SQL Server database software only took an uneventful three hours, the planning, testing and installation took more than 14 […]

Written By
thumbnail Larry Barrett
Larry Barrett
Aug 28, 2007
Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More

Oracle (Quote) on Monday announced that eHarmony, a leading online dating and match-making service, is now using the Oracle 10g database to play Cupid to more than 17 million love-starved users.

While the actual transition from Microsoft’s SQL Server database software only took an uneventful three hours, the planning, testing and installation took more than 14 months, according to Mark Douglas, eHarmony’s vice president of technology.

But the days and weeks preceding those fateful three hours were every bit as nerve-wracking as those awkward, hesitant seconds leading up to a couple’s first kiss.

“It went flawlessly, but a lot of our IT people were nervous,” Douglas said in an interview with internetnews.com. “Some said they didn’t know a lot about databases but it sounded risky. We’re a 24/7 business. We can’t just shut our database down for the weekend.”

To make it happen, Douglas and his five-person IT crew embarked on the tedious task of scripting custom code that would allow eHarmony to seamlessly transfer data from the SQL Server database to Oracle 10g without any downtime.

The eHarmony site handles more than 400 million page views a month and processes between 400 and 1,200 transactions per second. Douglas wouldn’t comment on exactly how much revenue would be lost if the site went down but said it would “a lot more” than a $1,000 a minute.

“The analogy I like to use is that is was like transferring packages from one plane to another while both are in flight,” he said. “We had to write a really significant amount of code.”

eHarmony, along with competitors such as Yahoo Personals, Match.com, JDate and dozens of other more specialized sites, allows subscribers to build personal profiles, view other subscribers’ profiles and access an array of dating services, including a match-making system that connects would-be lovers with others based on their dating preferences. eHarmony, based in Pasadena, Calif., charges $59 a month for the service but does offer long-term contracts at a lower monthly rate.

In the past year, eHarmony’s registered user base has surged from around 11 million to more than 17 million, adding an average of 15,000 new daters each day. That kind of growth, Douglas said, couldn’t be accommodated on SQL Server.

“There’s nothing particularly wrong with SQL,” he said. “We just needed functionality that Microsoft doesn’t provide and didn’t want to write it all ourselves.”

Leading up to the live launch, eHarmony tested migrating more than five terabytes of its precious data every day for 100 days in a row. It uses more than 400 servers to process changes to customer profiles, queries for potential matches, searches and new customer orders.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.

  SEE ALL
APPLICATIONS ARTICLES  
thumbnail Larry Barrett

Larry Barrett is a freelance journalist and blogger who has covered the information technology and business sectors for more than 15 years. Most recently, he served as the online news editor for 1105 Media's Office Technology Group and as the online managing editor for SourceMedia's Investment Advisory Group publications Financial Planning, On Wall Street, and Bank Investment Consultant. He was also a senior writer and editor at Ziff Davis Media's Baseline Magazine, winner of the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award, and ZDNet. In addition, he's served as a senior writer and editor at prominent technology and business websites including CNET, InternetNews.com, Multichannel News, and the San Jose Business Journal.

Recommended for you...

thumbnail 8 Best Data Analytics Tools: Gain Data-Driven Advantage
Big Data
8 Best Data Analytics Tools: Gain Data-Driven Advantage
Kezia Grace Jungco
May 23, 2024
thumbnail Common Data Visualization Examples: Transform Numbers into Narratives
Big Data
Common Data Visualization Examples: Transform Numbers into Narratives
Liz Ticong
May 20, 2024
thumbnail 10 Best Cloud-Based Project Management Software Platforms of 2024
Cloud
10 Best Cloud-Based Project Management Software Platforms of 2024
Leon Yen
May 14, 2024
thumbnail HubSpot CRM vs. Salesforce: Head-To-Head Comparison (2024)
Applications
HubSpot CRM vs. Salesforce: Head-To-Head Comparison (2024)
Kezia Grace Jungco
Apr 30, 2024
Datamation Logo

Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.

facebook
youtube
x

Company

About us Contact us Advertise with us

Categories

Trends Big Data Data Center AI Cloud Applications Mobile Open Source Security Storage

Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

Terms of Service Privacy Policy California - Do Not Sell My Information