RE: Q. To RAC or go vertical

Matt, Brad, Group,

Another Bite.

My opinion on RAC (after limited nr of trials), I did read Mogens and loads of other articles, ppts etc...

The arguments in favour of RAC are :

• Scalability (scale out, rather then forklift)
• flexibility (capacity on demand, increase and Decrease)
• redundancy (failover, TAF, within limits)
• TCO (I'm assuming Lintel here)

The args against are :

• Constraints on code and app (interconnect !)
• complexity of admin
• license cost (paper problem, but real for many of cstmrs)

To make the most of RAC: know the pros and cons, exploit the pros and mitigate the cons (duh!). Note that I list 4 pros and only 3 cons ;-)

Suggestions:

• examine data and applications behaviour (RAC deployment guide)
• know your hardware (interconnect and shared storage)
• use identical components (notably: servers)
• implement flexible admin: must buy into clusters/grid!
• implement a fast-cloning-strategy for servers (and software).
• use a CFS (OCFS is a good start, but only just, hire an ex DEC-VMS operator to tell you about clusters)
• resist temptation to use a single node/server for >1 purpose.
• .. and then some....

In the end, I will team up with the in-favour-of-RAC side, but I will look at each situation separately. Many IT ops are simply not ready to make the transition to clusters/grid yet.

Hint: re-vamping OFA to suit RAC (on a CFS only) may help.

Regards,

PdV

Oracle DBA

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