Re: Purchasing RAC

Made the same point to management.

Binley Lim <Binley.Lim_at_xtra.co.nz> wrote:Just musing about the scenaria presented by the original question and this very detailed response. No reflection on any specific posters at all.  

It seems like a case of damagement-driven disaster...  

"Have we got a great deal here!, so lets buy it. Now what else do we need? This is the first you know of the purchase that has just been made. Then you thought - great! I have just been presented with new toys to play with. And you dig a little deeper, and found you need a few more things. Well, if you need these things, lets get them -- as long as we are within the budget. Then you have all the things you thought you might need (if you stop here - great). So let's put them together then and see what happens. Guess what -- it went splat!"  

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to go: analyze it, cost it/test it, be happy with it, then buy it?  

Nope, the real world doesn't work like this. PHB rules.  

• Original Message ----- To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 4:26 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?
 



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Author: laura pena
  INET: lizzpenaorclgrp_at_yahoo.com

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