Re: 1 or 2 databases and/or servers?

Joe,

I tend to disagree with you recommendation. I'd probably recommend that both databases reside on one server, on one SID under two separate userids.

Reasons:

1. Backups: 1 set taken instead of 2
2. Maintenance: system maintentance on 1 machine
   • most ops groups I know would rather have fewer big machines than lots of little ones. : app maintenance same either way
3. Access: Users can have 1 userid & 1 'connect string'
4. Security: Security defined using grants/synonyms for 1 userid.
5. Development: Developers can write app to access both DBs from one 'set' of screens. In your solution, the tendancy would be to force the user to 'log off' one DB and on to the other.
6. Expansion: Easier (and cheaper) to justify 1 4Gig drive than 2 2Gig drives. Less initial memory required. (Each system has it's own overhead BEFORE Oracle is installed)
7. Upgrades: consistency. Fewer chances that users will have to use 2 versions simltaneously. Ops will only have to maintain & upgrade 1 system.
8. Cost: Fewer copies of RDBMS to 'purchase'. Fewer maintenance people. More developer & ops cross-training.

And yes, I have a strong mainframe & glass castle background. But these arguements also come from 12 years in Oracle under Unix & many years of Oracle under PC.

/Hans

Yong CC (Joe) wrote:
>
> Got a small dilemma here. A colleague of mine is involved in a
> project that uses Oracle 7 for two (2) independent departments within
> the same company. The _only_ connection between these two departments is
> that they may need to query data from each other's database. There are no
> relations whatsoever between the two databases. They merely need to have
> access (with certain restrictions) to the information on each other's
> database. Now, when consulted, I recommended that there be two distinct
> databases sitting on individual servers. My justification include the
> following factors (in brief):
> - security
> - ease of maintenance
> - independence of operations/maintenance
> - minimal "downtime"
> - caters for upgrades/expansion
> My colleague shares my opinion but she is having some trouble
> getting the same support from the rest of her team. Some of the reasons
> they provided include difficulty in implementing such a setup, difficulty
> in writing applications (they're using Oracle Forms 4.5) to work with this
> setup and lack of documented proof that this solution was better that having
> both database sit on the same Oracle server or even just having one large
> database even though there will be two, generally unrelated set of tables.
> I reject these as invalid arguments but it is difficult to explain to them
> since they are all from AS/400 and/or mainframe background with no RDBMS
> experience (no offense intended).
> Does anyone out there have any experience with such a setup or knows
> of such a setup and does not mind sharing some info/experience. I am
> preparing a report to present my recommendation and any information would
> be most appreciated. Thank you.
>
> Joe Yong
> Software Alliance (M) Sdn. Bhd.
Received on Mon Sep 30 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST