Re: SAC NORAD and Dustin Hoffman. WAS: HA HA HA on your 24/7 systems

Oh Ross...... remember my week before Christmas nightmare at the company I won't name?

multiple controllers, mirrored disks..... and someone set up the system incorrectly -- still not sure if the disk was mirrored to itself or if the controllers were set up wrong.

One disk failed.... and we lost the online redo logs, I lost a LOT of sleep and learned about Oracle's data unloader product.

Disk can be a single point of failure....

>From: "Mohan, Ross" <Ross.Mohan_at_PictureVision.com>
>Reply-To: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
>Subject: SAC NORAD and Dustin Hoffman. WAS: HA HA HA on your 24/7 systems
>Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 06:05:58 -0800
>
>That's why they say that SAC/NORAD ( Strategic
>Air Command HQ, North American Defense ) buried
>deep into a mountain in Colorado is a "single point
>of failure" for the US NationalDefense:
>
>All it takes is a direct hit by one nuclear
>bomb to bring down the whole facility! :-)
>
>In the words of the Marathon Man's tormentor:
>
>"Is it safe?"
>
><evil laughter>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 7:45 PM
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>
>
>Sorry Ross. Yes I am familiar with enterprise
>class storage systems.
>
>It still isn't HA.
>
>It only takes one bumbling SA ( or DBA ) to bring
>the system down, one neanderthalic techie in the
>computer room to push the 'OFF' switch.
>
>Simultaneous failure of both of the controllers for
>an array, or of enough disks to bring the array down
>are not unheard of.
>
>Jared
>
>On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Mohan, Ross wrote:
>
> > I have to say this "disk is a single point of failure"
> > is jangling to the cognitive logic subsystem.
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > Well, the disk farms i have seen have redundant controllers,
> > with redundant channels, TRIPLE power supplies, at least a
> > single mirror with dual porting. There's your "single" disk
> > point of failure for you.
> >
> > Now, try this: Take your two "redundant" nodes....put them
> > in a really really big rack and then inside ONE big box. <G>
> >
> > Are the two nodes ( which now have at least redundant CPUs,
> > power supplies, etc. ) a "single point of failure"?
> >
> > Come on, guys, if you've worked with this stuff a bunch you know:
> >
> > (a) properly configured diskfarms have a great MTBF, better
> > than the other hardware, and
> > (b) to REALLY answer Mary's class of questions, you need to
> > calculate MTBFs and MTTRs.
> >
> > The rest is armchair clustering!
> >
> > hope this pertains,
> >
> > Ross Mohan
> >
> > p.s. HA is the latest marketspeak for "failover" or "redundant" or
> > whatever...
> > please try to browse a copy of "In Search of Clusters" by Gregory
>Pfister
> > from
> > IBM. It's a cult classic, a helluva fun read, and one of the best
> > thought-out
> > technical books i have ever seen, period.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 2:00 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> >
> >
> >
> > Mary,
> >
> > OPS is not an HA solution. While you may still have
> > an instance running if a node goes down, the storage
> > medium is still a single point of failure.
> >
> > Jared
> >
> > On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Ruiz, Mary A (CAP, CDI) wrote:
> >
> > > I need a little advice. We have a fairly new (< 1 year) 8.1.5
>instance
> > to
> > > support my company's internet business. We recently changed our
>network
> > > solutions provider and now my management wants to achieve a higher
>level
> > of
> > > redundancy than it currently does with mirrored disks. The solution
>being
> > > proposed by my Sysadmin is an Oracle Parallel Server solution. Some
> > > background is in order here - we have always shut our databases down
>at
> > > night for backups. I am not highly skilled in backup and recovery
> > although
> > > I tried some of the hot backup techniques from this list and was able
>to
> > > recover successfully to another server. I noticed that the course
>offered
> > > by Oracle in OPS has backup and recovery as well as performance tuning
>as
> > > pre-requisites, which indicates to me that OPS could be extremely
> > > challenging. Also, I have read mainly unfavorable comments about OPS
>from
> > > this list, but most of those comments were based on the Oracle 7
> > > implementations (High administrative costs, difficult to implement,
>etc.).
> >
> > >
> > > Have things improved with Oracle 8i ? Is OPS worth pursuing? Or
>should
>I
> > > convince my management that extra $$ spent in, say, a hot standby
>database
> > > is well worth it? Is there any other solution that would not involve
>a
> > > second set of disks, rather a second database on the same set of disks
>??
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > > Mary Ruiz / Atlanta
> > >
> > > --
> > > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> > > --
> > > Author: Ruiz, Mary A (CAP, CDI)
> > > INET: Mary.Ruiz_at_gecapital.com
> > >
> > > Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
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> >
> >
> > Jared Still
> > Certified Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist ;-)
> > Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon
> > jkstill_at_bcbso.com - Work - preferred address
> > jkstill_at_teleport.com - private
> >
> >
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> > --
> > Author: Jared Still
> > INET: jkstill_at_bcbso.com
> >
> > Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> > San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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> > to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
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> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> > --
> > Author: Mohan, Ross
> > INET: Ross.Mohan_at_PictureVision.com
> >
> > Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> > San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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>
>
>Jared Still
>Certified Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist ;-)
>Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon
>jkstill_at_bcbso.com - Work - preferred address
>jkstill_at_teleport.com - private
>
>
>--
>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
>--
>Author: Jared Still
> INET: jkstill_at_bcbso.com
>
>Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
>San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
>--
>Author: Mohan, Ross
> INET: Ross.Mohan_at_PictureVision.com
>
>Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
>San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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Received on Mon Oct 16 2000 - 12:34:21 CDT