Re: Oracle and NFS

Thom,

Running Oracle with NFS mounted datafiles, control files, and redo logs is an accident waiting to happen.

Why?

First, NFS it is NOT supported, nor is it sane with respect for use with Oracle for that matter.
Second, you are introducing MULTIPLE points of failure. Third, the overall complexity increases dramitically. Fourth, it will be slooooooowwww.
Fifth, one day something bad will happen and you will lose your database.

When management says something stupid like "Hey, why don't we maintain our databases and data in the CHEAPEST way possible?" Ask them these questions.

1. If we lost our database what would be the impact to the company?
2. What is our data worth in terms of a dollar amount?
3. What level of risk should we take with respect to our data? Should we be conservative and do things sanely or do things as cheaply as possible.
4. What is acceptable performance and do we care if users complain the database is slow?

I suspect if you lose your database the place will grind to a halt and you will feel the burning of eyeballs on the back of your head while you try to get things running again. Always, remember the cheap, fast, good triangle... you can pick any two and exclude the third :)

The best solution for a database you really value and careabout is a Ultra Wide or Fiber Channel SCSI diskarray directly connected to the server, which is mirrored to another diskpack on another controller connected to the same server. Additionally, you will be running Oracle in archive log mode, doing nightly hot backups, with at least one weekly cold backup and nightly exports. You will test recovering your database on a similar server that is NOT in the same room/building as your production server. Additionally, you will send your backup tapes somewhere safe and offsite everday.

Also remember, more spindles equal better performance. 80GB drives are not what you want for performance, even though you could fit all your datafiles on one of these hig capacity drives.

Do the right thing for your data! Sometimes Admins and DBA's have to gird their sword and armor to defend their databases and systems from cheap clueless managers.

-mg3

"Thomulus" <t_l_crider_at_my-deja.com> wrote in message news:9id771$kui$1_at_news.jump.net...
> Okay, I'm just wondering why one would or would not want to run oracle
> (datafiles, control files, redologs, oracle_home) over NFS? Trying to get
> some data on this subject as management thinks a very cheap NAS, IDE
 storage
> device running NFS is our storage and performance solution. All comments
> appreciated.
>
> Thom
>
>
Received on Tue Jul 10 2001 - 10:24:27 CDT