Re: yipeee!

Mike wrote:

> Just recieved a 'thought experiment' assignment from my boss.
> Does it make sense, and how would it be accomplised, to move
> the databases from the mainframe (small VSE 390?) to AIX?
> I mentioned that we should then look at possible programs from
> IBM to convert the mainframe database (VSAM?) files into DB2/AIX,
> or Oracle databases. And that I thought Oracle had some facility
> such that we could cluster and load-balance two+ nodes running
> something like Parallel Oracle so that should a node need booting
> or modifying off-line the application is still running (at
> reduced capacity) for the users.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Mike

You are referring to Oracle's Real Application Cluster (RAC) architecture. And it an not only provide load balancing it can also provide real-time failover. With 10g, a grid can be layered on top of RAC providing the ability to dynamically balance across multiple clusters and to balance I/O too. One of the biggest assets of RAC is that you can add and remove nodes from a cluster at any point-in-time wihtout recoding any part of the application.

The architecture is shared everything and IBM claims to have it as well ... but they only have it on with DB2 on mainframes. DB2 on other platforms, such as AIX, are still shared nothing.

If you are interested in more information on RAC feel free to contact me off-line.

-- 
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/oad/oad_crs.asp
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/aoa/aoa_crs.asp
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
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