Re: 64 node Oracle RAC Cluster (The reality of...)

On 06/23/2005 12:27:48 AM, Ken Naim wrote:
> I haven't worked with ASM so I cannot comment on whether to use it or not
> however a couple reasons to use it could be cost and support. AFAIK there is
> no extra charge for ASM and Veritas is very expensive for any/all of their
> products. As for support it is better to talk one set of support staff
> instead of 2 pointing fingers at each other without having to pay extra for
> VOS support. 

There is an old saying that you get what you pay for. Reliability of the 
company's
database is not the main thing to save money at. You can have New Year with 
Heineken
instead of Dom Perignon and that's perfectly alright. Saving money on 
reliability is
not alright. ASM is an LVM. The common wisdom dictates not to use it until it 
becomes 
reliable. Think about it this way: if your ASM storage becomes corrupt (has 
happened), 
your database will be corrupt as well and you will have to restore it from 
backup (it 
must be RMAN, because nothing else works with ASM) and  recover it. During that 
time 
your database will be inaccessible to its users and your CIO will have plenty 
of time 
to think about you and your advice. It is very likely that you will have to 
exercise 
your resume-writing skills as soon as the database is back on-line. Your 
professional
reputation may suffer from the fact that your database was down for hours and 
that is
not a good thing. I'd rather go with something like OCFS or GFS or UFS (SUN) 
then with
ASM. Even raw devices are very reliable, if somewhat cumbersome. Oracle Support 
is a 
great psychological help if you don't have at least silver support. They'll 
gladly 
pray for you.
-- 
Mladen Gogala
Oracle DBA


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