Re: RAC on Windows

We've got RAC running on Windows platform - we've installed on it HP (intel) (+ SCSI), Compaq (+ Fiber), and IBM (+ Fiber) servers in combination
with Win2000 Server (not Advanced Server). The HP in combination with SCSI gave us the least amount of trouble in terms of stability.
The IBM config used to crash every 2 days due to split brains (although we use private AND public
interconnects). After 3 months we found that an bios upgrade of the machine fixed this (both Oracle and
IBM blaming eachother, duh) - but now the config still *crashes* every week due to shared pool problems (fix -
flush the shared pool every so many times).

To me - RAC on Wintel is a true nightmare. The wintel hardware vendors know *dick* about concurrent access,
parallel servers etc. I would never recommend using RAC or OPS on wintel to anybody - it's just not *HA*.
Example - on the 3 configs we have running pulling out the private interconnect will result in split brain *even* if we have a public interconnect between the nodes (on node goes to a 100% CPU - so you have to reboot it - doing
that the other node crashes etc etc). At least on unix you would have been able to kill the bugger and restart - windows just doesn't respond :-)
Allthough there's a parameter to specify multiple nics - it simply doesn't work.

Then there's support - if you have a problem with RAC you're in for a surprise : there are not too many support people who have in-depth knowledge of RAC. The same was true with OPS - now suddenly everybody is a RAC
expert but when things get a bit complex you still have to escalate things to a far away expert. Simple things like backing up the DB using RMAN becomes a difficult question for your local Oracle guru.

Basically :
- in theory it's quite nice and definitely better than OPS - but once you start running into shit, you're into it till your neck ! - personally - I would never use Windows to run RAC : go for Tru64, HPUX, AIX or Solaris
- I would wait for version 9i release 4 or something :-) this thing needs to mature a bit :-)

"Joe Yong" <flyingbuick_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message news:6ad26002.0211051318.4296bdef_at_posting.google.com...
> Hi all,
> We've got customers investigating RAC on Windows but almost everywhere
> we turn, we can't find any references for customers who have deployed
> RAC on Windows (or are in the process of doing so). I didn't search
> the Oracle site but the case studies do not provide platform
> information.
>
> Anybody here got RAC working on Windows? If so, I'd really appreciate
> your sharing your experience (factual) and your opinions of the whole
> process/system as a DBA.
>
> Thanks.
Received on Sat Nov 09 2002 - 06:44:27 CST