Dual Processor Server or 2 x Single Processor RAC Nodes?

Hi there Gentlemen and Ladies.

I am in a bit of a quandry...

We need to upgrade our oracle licenses from the current single processor Oracle standard licence (which we run on Windows 2000 sp4 with 6 x Direct Attach SCSI 18GB Drives in a raid 1 and raid 10 configuration) to a dual processor configuration for performance and reliability reasons.

We have the option of either purchasing another Oracle Standard Edition CPU licence for $19K, plus to the ongoing support costs or purchasing a new 2 x CPU licence of Oracle Standard Edition One for $12K. The Oracle salesmen say that OSE1 doesn't include RAC, but would we want to RAC in a small system like this?

So given this scenario, would we be better to just purchase OSE1 and run it on a single box, or would it be more strategic (for performance, scalability and future licensing reasons) for us to run a dual node RAC, and move our storage into (say) an iSCSI SAN.

Our business is becoming more reliant on the database, and down time is not desirable, but we are no means 24x7.

Your advice is appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Mike Cretan (mgcnews@_no_tascol._sp_com._am_au - remove the "_no_" "_sp_" "_am_" bits for for my email address) Received on Mon Apr 04 2005 - 22:41:38 CDT