Re: AIX or W2k3 to run Cluster?

Jack wrote:

>>>I'm ready to do extra research to come to a decision.
>>>
>>>So far I'm evaluating:
>>>
>>>SAN vs NAS
>>
>>Probably NAS as the additional cost for SAN rarely is justified by
>>the additional performance but maybe not in your situation. So basically
>>"it depends."
>>

Why? Prejudice and mythology from how things were years ago? You might want to note that Oracle Corp., itself, uses a large amount of NFS mounted NAS. And if it is good enough for Larry ... it is good enough for me. So do a very large number of Oracle's customers.

> SAN with RAID-10 will be good choice (1MB stribe size, or at least 256kb).
> Look that hardware is RAC-certified.

How can you feel comfortable giving this kind of specific advice when you don't know the OP's storage vendor, don't know the nature of the i/o that will be done, etc.

> Nowadays Intel-based hardware is relatively cheap.
> (If you compare what *nix hardware used to cost)

What does this have to do with SAN vs NAS? And it is incorrect too. Your assumption about pricing in not valid as stated.

> For reference:
> http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/downloads/HPInfiniBandSolution_OracleRAC.pdf
> http://download.oracle.com/docs/pdf/B10766_08.pdf

I don't believe this. First you reocmmend "relatively cheap" Intel-based hardware and then you suggest the most expensive mem-interconnect strategy possible. How does this make sense? And what does Intel hardware or Linux have to do with the SAN vs NAS question at all?

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)