Oracle Data Guard - Any Opinions?

I've been considering using Oracle Data Guard to provide disaster recovery for a number of Oracle 9 databases. The documentation makes it look quite promising but I'm seeking unbiased opinions from users who have experience of the product. In particular: -

1 Is it reliable? I've had disappointing experiences with Oracle software before.

2 How much flexibility do you have in the choice of operating system/hardware/oracle version? The documentation seems a bit vague on this. I understand the operating system needs to be from the same manufacturer, solaris -> solaris, Linux -> Linux and so on but how close do the versions have to be? Also, does running the standby on a much smaller machine to provide core services in an emergency work well?

3 How does licencing work? If the standby database can only be used when the primary is unavailable, will one licence cover both servers or do they have to be licenced separately?

Thanks for any advice,

Richard Received on Wed Jul 30 2003 - 12:53:24 CDT