Re: oracle grid

Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:<1095614851.629349_at_yasure>...
> Noons wrote:
>
> > Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:<1095458876.315376_at_yasure>...
> >
> >>There is no relationship in the Oracle world between RAC and GRID. You
> >>can have RAC without GRID, GRID without RAC, both or neither.
> >
> >
> > I wonder then why Oracle includes RAC as part of their grid
> > infrastructure?
>
> Because Oracle's sales and marketing team has either:
>
> A. A very confused idea of what they are selling
> or
> B. A very confused message creating end-user confusion
> or
> C. Both

I'm going to simultaneously agree and disagree with you Daniel!

You *can't* have a Grid without a RAC (so Noons is right). For the simple reason that, without RAC, as an end-user, I would know what server I was connected to (ie, I would *have* to know), whereas the essence of Grid-ness is neither to know nor care. And for that, I need a choice of instances running on a plethora of servers.

Pursuing the grid industry's favourite analogy: if there was only one power station in the country, and a cable running directly from it to your house, that wouldn't be a power grid. For a power grid, you need lots of power stations and lots of cables so that you don't know where the electron you just consumed was actually generated.

But you are right too, because there is actually no such thing as "the Grid", just degrees of grid-ness. So, yes, I *could* indeed have a grid without RAC: it's just that it wouldn't be a very griddy grid. On a spectrum of transparency and ubiquity, a RAC-less grid is neither very transparent nor particularly ubiquitous.

Hence Oracle doesn't say you *have* to have RAC for a Grid (at least, I hope not!), merely that RAC is a core grid technology.

It's called having your cake and eating a hearty breakfast, too.

Regards
HJR Received on Mon Sep 20 2004 - 01:30:51 CDT