RE: Q. To RAC or go vertical

.. though now that I've read the original post ( missed it somehow ) I would say
that you may just want a bigger box.

See Mogen's article "You Probably Don't Need RAC" at selectonline.org.

You may want to ask Mogens for an alternative version of the article, in fact, I think you should.

Jared

Jared Still <jkstill_at_cybcon.com>
Sent by: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com
 08/05/2003 08:44 AM
 Please respond to ORACLE-L  

        To:     Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
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        Subject:        RE: Q.  To RAC or go vertical

While fault tolerance is certainly one of the features of RAC, it isn't correct to say that it is not also for scalability.

Buy a bigger box? That works fine until you're in the biggest box you can get, then what? I realize that it's a small market segment that requires that kind of hardware, but it still exists.

Sun has been testing a cluster of 15k servers with RAC, ostensibly for scalability. Some nodes are populated with 78 CPU's and 288 Gig of RAM. ( yes, that is correct ).

Jared

On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 07:54, Stephen Lee wrote:
>
> I think the point of RAC is fault tolerance, not scalability. If it's
> performance you want then you want a bigger box, not more boxes. 8 CPUs
is
> not big. You sure don't need the expensive hardware if all you want to
run
> is 8 CPUs. It would be better to go with a smaller frame and use the
money
> you save to get more CPUs and additional I/O capacity. For example,
instead
> of E12K with 8 CPUs, get 4810 with 12 CPUs -- unless you have definite
plans
> to push the E12K out to its limits in the future. Don't forget to
consider
> the backup requirements of a 5 - 10 TByte database. Another
consideration,
> I think, is that those big, fancy boxes require additional sys admin
skills.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Hi All
>
> I would like to ask for your thoughts on whether to RAC or just go
vertical
> (more cpu)
>
> Background
>
> Txn - OLTP like txn during day but batch extracts at night and
> very big batch extract periodically
> Data Volume - 5-10 TByte
> Data volatility - 99 % of data is very much like a ware house
(unchanged)
> other 1% is read/update/delete/insert
>
> Options
> 1. Say a very large server like a HP Superdome or SUN E12000
> with 8 CPUs
> Server already exist so cost is in obtaining additional
CPU/Blades
> ie Traditional Server using plain old vanilla Oracle EE
> - can still increase head room.
> - batch programs can utilise all 8 CPUs
> - storage system need not cater for clustering
>
> 2, Same large server like a HP Superdome or SUN E12000 but partitioned
> into two. Each with 4 CPU.
> Oracle RDBMS + RAC option
> - storage server need to cater for cluster config
> - max performance for batch is with 4 CPUs only
>
>
> Which would you prefer and why. I am not convinced with the RAC option.
> Now
> if I was going with cheaper Intel servers like Dell servers with 4 CPUS
> each, and
> purchase say 4 nodes of 4 cpus each, that would be a different story. In
> this case
> I have the equipment and ability to grow vertically.
>
> ta
> tony
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> --
> Author: Stephen Lee
> INET: Stephen.Lee_at_DTAG.Com
>
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  INET: jkstill_at_cybcon.com

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