Restricting Oracle to one processor

Greetings,

I have been asked the following questions by the windows administrator on one of the databases I administer. Is it possible to restrict Oracle to one of the two processors. We would be running Oracle 10gR2 on Windows server 2003. Essentially the desire is to use one processor for Oracle and the other for windows. This is not a VMWARE type configuration either.

"The issue here is that if we purchase a system with dual quad-core processors, we only want to use one quad-core for the primary Oracle installation and have the other quad-core available for VMs. That way we only have to commit two of our four Oracle licenses to the installation. Just looking at how to maximize hardware capabilities and minimize software costs."

My initial searching indicates that this is probably not possible let alone a good idea. My understanding is that by doing this you lose the ability to balance between Oracle and the O/S and that the kernel does this much better on its own, who is keeping track of what essentially. I am aware of the Windows parameter NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS but as I understand it setting it to one means you know longer have the second processor available. And who knows if this meets licensing restrictions.

Basically it seems to me to be not a good idea but I am open to comments.

Thanks.

Bill Wagman
Univ. of California at Davis
IET Campus Data Center
wjwagman_at_ucdavis.edu
(530) 754-6208

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