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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> RE: 9i RAC or 10g RAC ?
Anyone have any ideas on when/if Oracle will start supporting GFS? = Since Redhat bought them I would believe it is only a matter of time = before it is supported by Oracle. My understanding is that it is a = solid clustered filesystem technology, I'm still a little weary of OCFS.
-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org]On Behalf Of Don Granaman
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 4:42 PM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Re: 9i RAC or 10g RAC ?
I'll chime in...
Cary, Zhu, and some others are correct. If you are looking for
"performance", don't use RAC. The cost of everything , including just
starting the instance, is greater. If you want basic availability, =
don't
use RAC. It is more complex and has more "moving parts" that can go =
wrong.
Please refer to Mogens' paper "You Probably Don't Need RAC" at
http://www.miracleas.dk (via Writings From Mogens).
My experience with RAC on RedHat As 2.1 (and now ES 3.0) is similar to
Zhu's. The behavior of 9.0.x was almost comical. It seemed sometimes =
that
a single stray neutrino could crash everything even near a cluster
component. Even with 9.2.0.4 we had a few additional hardware (?) =
issues
that were "interesting". One was a driver (for the EMC Clariion) that =
would
occasionally cause a node to "lose its LUNs". Even though they were =
still
accessible from the other node, its instance too would die a horrible =
death.
Then after reboot, instance recovery would take ~45 minutes - even when
there was little to do. There would be little or no I/O, very little =
CPU
utilization, but the instance would sit there for 43 minutes or so, then
realize that it was supposed to be doing recovery, suddenly come to =
life,
and complete in 70 seconds or so. Support finally created an (as yet
unpublished) bug on it. However, after several driver updates (my boss =
is a
VP, the SA, and was a sr systems engineer at EMC for years - and has a =
few
connections...), all this silliness finally disappeared, as well as some
other issues (e.g. 12170 two-task layer errors) that were evidently tied =
to
the driver. I got to close three long-standing TARs! [GD: "What a =
long,
strange trip its been..."]
After six months, multiple OS patches, multiple QLogic driver updates, a =
few
Oracle patches and workarounds, and some application process =
partitioning,
the system is now fairly stable (with 9.2.0.4). Not as stable as on =
8.1.7.4
exclusive though. The interconnect speed, as mentioned previously, is
important, but beware that there are some limiting issues with Linux
(multiple/redundancy/crashworthiness, speed, etc.) with Linux (RedHat =
on
Dell at least) compared to more "mature" cluster implementations (e.g =
Sun
PDB, HP, etc.). I haven't really had any significant problems with it, =
but
I don't have a "randomly splatter processes over an array of
nodes/instances" implementation.
What I like best about RAC is that I can often exile ill-behaved =
processes
(e.g. "What's a bind variable?", LIO pigs, cache-trashers, and their =
ilk) to
node(s) not running more critical and well-behaved code. You do get
multiple redo threads and some other things that may help in certain
situations. To quote one true OPS/RAC expert (name withheld to protect =
an
Oracle employee from "political incorrectness" charges). "I like RAC, I =
like
Linux, but I don't like RAC on Linux - at least not yet".
I have no experience with 10g yet, but if you want "cheap", I find the
concept of Oracle One RAC on a large cluster of 2-CPU Linux machines =
both
intriguing and scary. Yep - with 10g RAC is available for SE, EE is not
required! At the serious risk of sounding like a dinosaur/heretic, if =
you
can intelligently partition your application processes between
nodes/instances, it might work well on a (Oraclely speaking) shoestring
budget.
One thing that has always been the bane of Oracle on Linux is =
ruinStaller.
The compatibility matrix for Linux is like "where's Waldo?" If you =
have
the right version of Linux, the right version of Oracle, the right
glibc/compatibility, the right JRE/JDK ("M-O-U-S-E"), all the particular
environment quirks for the combination (e.g LD_ASSUME_KERNEL, ad =
nauseum),
and have sacrificed enough chickens, it works - usually. 10g *appears* =
to
be a vast improvement in this respect. The 9.2.0.5 patchset even uses =
it.
Even better, you can get an RPM for a 10g "lite" client install!
General advice: Get the fastest, baddest CPUs you can (at least for the
2-CPU nodes model) - RAC has additional overhead. Then there is =
"krefilld"
(sp? -don't currently have a Linux shell session)... Stuff the boxes =
with
memory - the first issue we encountered was memory, even with =
significantly
more than on the old 8.1.7.4 exclusive server.
-Don Granaman
(verbose) OraSaurus
> Please advise if i am wrong, but I'm hoping that moving to RAC would =
=3D
> help improve performance because :=3D20
>
> Our Solaris production box, which is 12 cpu 1200 mhz,24 gb ram is cpu =
=3D
> bound at peak working hours, and its lease ends in 3 months.
> Management does not want to spend money on a bigger Solaris box. So we =
=3D
> decided to purchase new linux boxes.
>
> Since 12+ cpu linux boxes are very expensive, we have decided to go =
for =3D
> 4cpu linux boxes featuring 2.2ghz Opteron cpu's on 9i or 10g rac, and =
a =3D
> new san with faster disks.
>
> rac is being used primarily because i want to link together these 3 or =
4 =3D
> linux boxes.
> The combination of these factors, faster cpu's , faster disks and =
bigger =3D
> ram should provide better performance, i hope ?
>
>
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