New challenge (clustering) -- where do I begin my study?

A new project is being assesed, and I've been tagged as the DBA. Here's what I'm seeing from the proposal document:

Two Sunfire servers will be installed in a cluster config w/ Solaris 8 and Veritas clustering. Two Oracle HA licenses.

DBA to build database and assist in configuring Oracle HA for failover.

A couple of statements regarding the DB are a bit vague/confusing. I'll clear them up with the project manager, but provide them here as a bit more context for my question. First, they say <middleware product> "will require an Oracle instance to use for data persitence. This instance can either be on the <middleware product> box themselves (Ed: these would be the two clustered servers in question) or can be housed by the application requiring the data persistence as long as
<middleware product> has access via Oracle client." Later they say
"Oracle instance needed for data persistence will be provided on the
<middleware product> servers . . . "

The technical description specifies Oracle Client 8.1.7. I find no version spec for the DB, but I would suppose 8.1.7. I will confirm with the project mgr.

I have no experience with clustering or "Oracle HA" We do have a bit of experience with replication.

My question: Where -- which manuals, which sections -- do I begin the necessary study? Received on Thu Aug 07 2003 - 10:04:21 CDT