A single node 4 CPU SE should scale even better than 2 node x 2 CPU SE RAC so using SE RAC for scalability is luxury and company doing so has way too much money. ...very true Availability? Well, besides Oracle licensing, HA environment requires fair amount of investment if it's really HA and not just "reported" HA because of RAC. ...please explain? -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l