Using Orcale Parallel Server to archieve nearly zero down time

I am currently looking for a high availability database solution for one of system. In my mind, I am planning to implement SUN Enterprise 4000 as the Servers, Oracle8i Parallel Server as the database engine, Veritas Cluster Server as the cluster manager and Clariion 5700 dual process RAID as the data storage.

I want to have two instances of Oracle8i, that share the same database, running in 2 separate servers actively. So, when one of them shut down, the other can take up the task immediately. I expect the down time to be less than 1 minute. However, some vendor told me that even with Oracle Parallel Server, two instances of Oracle8i that share the same database cannot be running actively at the same time. This is true because at any one time the Cluster Server will allow only one server to mount on the disk volume. Hence only one Oracle8i instance can access the database. When the primary Oracle8i is down, the secondary has to take 15 to 20 minute to initiate the database.

Is this true? Has anybody tried a similar setup? Please give me some advise and tips.

Thanks in advance!

JasonWong Received on Sun Oct 17 1999 - 11:57:02 CDT