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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> RE: [new info] Redhat Advanced Server Dev Edition - RAC
With all this discussion on "Why RAC?", I thought I'd chime in with our
reasoning, at least as it stands before any testing.
We currently have a few "major" databases for our ERP/MRP system, Engineering drawings, and "legacy" (I loathe that word) data. These databases are spread across three larger systems: Solaris, HP/UX, and OpenVMS. They are set up as any three independant systems with their own disks, own CPUs, own memory, etc. These relatively expensive systems are under utilized, and finally, are beginning to show their age (up to six years old).
By combining these systems under a single system, we will be saving money in hardware cost (future upgrades and repair) as well as in service contracts, not to mention the utimate savings -- computer room floorspace! What I don't want to do is have the consolidation negatively affect the DBs in performance or downtime (perceived or real). So, the idea right now is to use "commodity" (read: "inexpensive") servers, dual Intel (AMD???) 1Us, with a SAN, and 9iRAC.
The theory being that while we'll take an initial kick in the fiscal crotch with the Oracle licensing, since we currently refuse to let go of our Concurrent User, we'll come out ahead in the long run with the added performance and unlimited user (per CPU) licensing. Also, with the commodity servers, we can switch out the server for faster CPUs without incurring more licensing cost should the need arise (yes, Cary, I'm well aware of the "CPU Upgrade Myth"!).
With our testing, I hope to see that we'll be able to provide better uptime and performance with RAC than the total sum of the current boxes (save for the uptime on the OpenVMS box, which has 10 minutes of total downtime in the past 770+ days).
Any comments on this? In the interest of bandwidth and brevity, I've been way too brief here. This should really be discussed over Guinness.
Thx!
Rich
Rich Jesse System/Database Administrator rich.jesse_at_qtiworld.com Quad/Tech International, Sussex, WI USA
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