Re: RAW devices

PAKORA wrote:
> Is it a must to use Raw devices with RAC?
>
> What is the justification of using RAW on standard Oracle instances?

The justification is that it works.

Certainly there are alternatives depending upon your operating system. If you've a NetApp Filer Head F810 or above you can use their built-in cluster-ready file system. You could also use Oracle's OCFS or OCFS2 as a file system. But RAW or managed RAW (RAW + ASM) are a very good option and one that should be considered.

In a stand-alone Oracle database RAW is primarily used for speed. With RAC what is required is a shared-everything architecture. Which means either a sharable file system (NetApp / OCFS) or RAW.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)