Oracle-L: RE: Purchasing RAC

From: <Rajesh.Rao_at_jpmchase.com>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 12:42:34 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.0059A24C.20030515124234@fatcity.com>

Since you mention GFS and RAC, heres some Oracle Speak that we obtained when we were discussing this with Oracle:

Sun sales force is being fairly aggressive in claiming GFS IS supported with
RAC today. This is a case of the cart before the horse. At a development level, we have pushed back hard on Sun to do the required performance and certification testing to prove they have gotten past the known proxy io bottleneck. This is apparently in progress, but with no ETA for completion. The expectation is that further development work is required. The position taken by the Sun sales force is designed to try to eliminate a competitive differentiator Veritas currently has over Sun.

Regards
Raj

                                                                                                                   
                    Freeman Robert                                                                                 
                    - IL                 To:     Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>       
                    <FREEMANR_at_tusc       cc:                                                                       
                    .com>                Subject:     RE: Purchasing RAC                                           
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                    root_at_fatcity.c                                                                                 
                    om                                                                                             
                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                   
                    05/15/2003                                                                                     
                    04:08 PM                                                                                       
                    Please respond                                                                                 
                    to ORACLE-L

You scared me Tim.... Veritas DBE/AC 3.5 is certified.

-----Original Message-----

To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: 5/15/2003 11:26 AM

As of last month, your only option is "raw" logical volumes on Solaris platforms. That may have changed in the past few weeks, as Veritas is purported to be "very close" to getting its clustered file system certified on Oracle9i RAC, but I just checked the MetaLink certification pages and nothing new has been added. You can log a TAR on this if you like...

---

You've only got a few options for clustering software: either SunCluster v3.0 or Veritas Database Edition/Advanced Cluster (DBE/AC) v3.5. I think that there are Fujitsu-Siemens and Toshiba clustering software options that are also certified, but I'm guessing you're not going there? I mean, I didn't see anything in your configuration that indicated that you might go there, but I could be wrong... :-)

Once you've chosen the clustering software, then it's time to choose the logical volume manager. This is the easy part. There is only one choice: Veritas VxVM/CVM. The only other possible option, Solaris Solstice Disk Suite (SDS in Sol8, a.k.a. Solaris Volume Manager or SVM in Sol9), is not capable of presenting logical volumes to clustered servers. Maybe in Solaris10? :-)

OK, you've got the clustering software and a logical volume manager. With regards to any available clustered file systems to put atop your logical volumes, Veritas again might be your only option (as mentioned above), but check with Oracle Support first. Don't bother checking with Veritas; they'll tell you "Absolutely! It works great!". Also, Sun might try to tell you that their GFS filesystem is certified for use with RAC (they even have an internally released document stating this), but that is also completely incorrect. Oracle Support has not only said that it does not support GFS now, but that it will never support GFS in the future. So Sun can say all they like, but it ain't gonna happen...

My recommendation? Either Veritas DBE/AC or SunCluster for the clustering software, and then (of course) VxVM/CVM for volume manager. Don't bother with clustered file systems unless you like testing other people's just-certified software... :-)

Hope this helps...

on 5/15/03 7:31 AM, laura pena at lizzpenaorclgrp_at_yahoo.com wrote:

Seems we are getting a killer deal for purchasing RAC with Oracle9i.

We currently have purchased (2) SunFire 280 (Soalris) that will have a SAN connection to our Xiotech machine.

My question is do we need to purchase a clustering file system solution to run RAC? ie. Veritas cluster filesystem? If so, what else may need to be purchased?

Our Xiotech is shared with other applications, will this be a problem if implementing a RAC solution on it?

Thanks in advance.
-Lizz

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INET: Rajesh.Rao_at_jpmchase.com

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RE: Purchasing RAC - Oracle Speak