Re: 1 or 2 databases and/or servers?

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.

A lot depends on what the politics of the company and its departments will really go for. Some places I have worked would probably have opted for two servers to support the SAME database, but under two different names!

If the politics of the situation is that they really "want" two servers then I would recommend going for two servers. A strong argument can be made for the two server approach. Data base links and views can be used to defined the interfaces between the two servers and simplify application development. I would suggest that the servers be the same hardware and software and sized so that they could serve as Disaster Recovery sites for each other.

This will be more expensive than a two databases on one server with no D/R site, but it will be no more expensive than two databases on one server with a D/R site, but it will ensure that the D/R site actually works and runs the appropriate software.

Marek Wiechula Received on Fri Oct 04 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST