Re: Load balancing between an RAC database cluster and Top Link

Greg Collett wrote:
> All,
>
> We are designing an environment which is comprised of 3 database
> servers clustered together using RAC 10g. Connecting to the database
> is an Oracle Application Cluster of 4 App Servers running toplink.
> Currently the connection is facilitated through XML using oracle jdbc
> drivers.
>
> My question: In order to properly load balance the calls to the
> databse servers, do I require a hardware level load balancer between
> the Application tier and the Database tier?
>
> My understanding is that Oracle chares the db cache between the 3
> servers, and I believe it does load balancing between the servers as
> well. However, the jdbc connection on the app servers currently points
> at 1 database machine directly, and if that machine went down, the app
> could not connect to the RAC cluster (without a manual change). Is
> there a non-hardware solution to get around this?
>
> I am new to some of this and would appreciate any guidance.
>
> Thanks,
> Greg

Sorry, I don't have 10g specific information (don't know if them that have are allowed to share them yet with us ;-) ) but the load balancing/ transparent application failover mechanisms for RAC in 9i requires the usage of OCI. So if you use the thick drivers, you should be able to use TAF; the thin drivers bypass the OCI-Layer so if Oracle doesn't provide them with support for TAF in 10g then there is no way I guess.

HTH Holger Received on Mon Jan 26 2004 - 10:06:22 CST