NFS filesystems ok for Oracle tablespace?

Does anyone have any comments on the suitability of networked storage hubs for Oracle tablespaces. The beast we have in mind is a vast standalone hub, connected via FDDI, and using NFS (over either TCP or UDP) to make its filestore available to the host. The advantage is said to be that if the host dies then we can mount the filesystem on another host, bring up another Oracle on there, let it recover and get back into service in minutes.

Now, I'm worried about the suitability of this for holding Oracle tablespaces. Are you allowed to do that? Does an Oracle server absolutely *need* its disks to be local? What would happen if the storage hub ever said 'stale file handle' to the Oracle server? Or would this never happen in practice, given that we would be unlikely to inconvenience a tablespace data file's inodes in that kind of way? Any comments would be gratefully received.

As for performance, well, I shudder to think how much power will be wasted through overheads; but the hub concerned apparently has enough raw power to fritter it away and still give acceptable performance.

Yours, worried but not quite knowing why,

-- 
Dave Spencer                            "I lost my bag in Newport Pagnell"
Romford, Essex
d_at_dsds.demon.co.uk
Deltics and Multics and that sort of stuff at http://www.dsds.demon.co.uk/