Re: RAC in NAS

Thanks for the insightful comments Mark.

A couple of comments inline:

On 7/31/06, Mark Brinsmead <pythianbrinsmead_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Unless the TA has such an expert in house, or knows where to find one,
> > there's no one else to turn to than the vendors.
> >
>
> Really? They could maybe start with their DBAs... True, I *have* met
> a few DBAs who don't know how disk drives work, but I like to think that
> such DBAs are becoming fewer in number (or at least do not survive for
> long). Okay, maybe I live in a fantasy world, but at least it's a nice
> one. ;-)
> In any event, I would think that most DBAs have the necessary skills
> to tell a good storage solution from a collossally bad one. And sometimes
> even to identify those which are "supported" or "not supported" by Oracle.
>
>

Yes, DBA's can be a good source. But when a storage system begins getting complex, the average DBA can become overwhelmed. There are too many things to know for many DBA's to recognize a potential problem, one that might be obvious to someone with more in depth storage knowledge.

Often the DBA can be a good source for locating a storage expert.

> Back to the vendors, once again.
> >
>
> "Back to the vendors?" I hope not! Yes, vendors are often an important
> source of information, but they should (very) rarely become a source of
> *advice*!
> In my humble opinion, anyway.
>
> Spending just a few thousand dollars for a consultant can be a fabulous
> investment in situations like this. For SMBs, this is especially crucial,
>
> since they usually have no budget for re-work, and the entire corporation
> may depend on the success of a single project.
>

No argument there. Finding an available storage expert may not always be easy. More likely though is that the idea of hiring a consultant for storage strategy is an afterthought, and there's no room in the budget. Perhaps education in this regard would help.

And then again, some of the most knowledgeable storage people do work for vendors. One trick is knowing which ones to listen to. (Kevin C is a good example - PolyServe)

Another trick is convincing skeptical managers that a particular vendor employee actually is worth listening to. Too often the mgrs listen to the wrong people.

-- 
Jared Still
Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l