Re: Newbie Question : Clustering

"Peter Tan" <petertan78_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3be7f042$1_at_news.starhub.net.sg>...
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering about clustering for Oracle and other system.
>
> Hardware providers like HP, Compaq or IBM has clustering technology.
> Software providers like Oracle, Sybase, or others has clustering
> technology. But what is the differences and how would both co-exists
> together ?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>
> --

The answer varies by hardware platform and Oracle version but basically is that the OS must first support clustering before Oracle can support clustering.

With Oracle versions 7.0 - 8.0 a clustered Oracle required Oracle Parallel Server, OPS, to support multiple instances of Oracle accessing one database (the clustered files). These versions of Oracle required that a hardware lock manager be present in the OS; OPS would not install if it was not present. With 8.1 Oracle took over some of the functions provided by the hardware lock manager and it became a requirement that the hardware lock manager not be present for OPS to install.

With 9i and Real Application Clusters, RAC, replaces OPS and Oracle has improved cache fusion so that updates as well as reads avoid block pinging, but Oracle still needs the underlying vendor hardware (OS) to support clustering. I know there was talk that Oracle would perform the clustering but to my knowledge based on a 9i RAC presentation given by Oracle at the DOUG the OS file system must still support clustering.

• Mark D Powell --