Re: Oracle Binaries on NAS

"SLSiebenaler" <sieb_at_cinci.rr.com> wrote in message news:K1Cga.19$JI.192653_at_twister.neo.rr.com...
> Ok, here's the environment. Our client outsources operations to the
company
> I work for.... (major point)
>
> We run PROD on four 4-node Veritas clusters attached to EMC Symmetrix
SANs.
> The $ORACLE_HOMEs are on either local storage on the Sun servers (or SAN
> storage), which we have a 16gb mount point for the various flavors of
> Oracle. The QA environment is two 5-node clusters. We run 7.3.4, 8.1.x,
> and 9.2.x in the enterprise. It's a lot of work keeping patches up to
> snuff, but I like the fact that we can patch a home that's not being used,
> then fail the cluster to the patched node. Simple....
>
> Now, our "client" thinks we can save disk space (and money) and
> administration headache by consolidating the Oracle binaries on a
separate,
> single NAS device. Now for Oracle Client installs, I'm not too worried.
> But for running an instance, I have major concerns, one of which is the
> "loss of NAS" incident, which may cause all instances to crash. Secondly,
> if a patch is needed, we would have to shutdown all the instances for a
> given ORACLE_HOME. Third, they propose putting /var/opt/oracle on NAS
also.
> This means that files like "oratab" and "listener.ora" would have to
contain
> entries for all the databases. Also, we need to address issues with
> symbolic links for the oracle password file, the spfile, pfile, and
listener
> log files, as well as the instance lk file (in the $ORACLE_HOME/dbs
> directory).
>
> Quite frankly, I'm against the whole idea, but I want to present a good
> argument for keeping things as they are. But our client really thinks
this
> is a "progressive move".
>
> SLS...
>
>

I think I'd do this:

Put out a little paper (only a page or two), highlighting the reduction in resilience. Include as many or as few details as you want; they won't understand or read it anyway.

Ask them to quantify the cost saving which justifies this increased risk.

Cynical, I know. But the bean-counters won't put their careers on the line to risk it.

Regards,
Paul

Senior DBA; Junior Politician Received on Sat Mar 29 2003 - 17:18:42 CST