Hi All,

I'm not real familiar with either of the two technologies I am posting
about, but, we are setting up 2 new servers to run 5 database
instances.

Currently we have 5 older machines, and they are about to go. We are
trying to decide if it would be better to run VM WARE and have 5
virtual machines between the 2 new machines, with the databases
replicating themselves on the other for failover.

OR

Run Oracle RAC.

Homes on the same box right?

Can anyone offer some feedback maybe on some of their experiences??

Thanks!

On May 11, 5:17 pm, "ame... (AT) iwc (DOT) net" <ame... (AT) iwc (DOT) net> wrote:
For once, please do some homework prior to posting
For instance http://www.orafaq.com/faq/rac

Other than that vmware is to RAC as is apples to pears.
They are two completely different concepts.

--
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA

On May 11, 10:24 am, sybrandb <sybra... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
I was thinking more like bagels and lox; they aren't the same but they
can go together.


David Fitzjarrell

On May 11, 11:42 am, "fitzjarr... (AT) cox (DOT) net" <fitzjarr... (AT) cox (DOT) net>
wrote:
Only by running 2/3 instances on a single box you pay a substantial
penalty in terms of CPU, memory and I/O bandwith. Adding a vritual
machine to the mix will only make the whole thing slower. Can you not
consolidate the 5 into 1 and then either replicate to the other
machine or rac them together?

On May 11, 11:47 am, Valentin Minzatu <valentinminz... (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>
wrote:
I have no problems running multiple instances or vm on the same
machines. In fact, some vm images run faster than native. It all
depends on how you set it up.

If you have to ask, then stay away from RAC.

On May 11, 11:17 am, "ame... (AT) iwc (DOT) net" <ame... (AT) iwc (DOT) net> wrote:
databases.

VM is great if you have 1 Windows box and need to run 9i OEM, 10g
grid, and other point versions on the same machine. This is requires
multiple homes to house the specific binary point versions. The VM
environments make this easy, otherwise you are monkeying with path
settings trying to get things to work right. Again, multiple legacy
version home management on Windows is a pain, so VM eliminates this.
The other nice thing is that legacy can be plugged in when necessary
from an image, rather than a soup-to-nuts install. Set it up once in
VM, keep it running, or put it away until needed. All that is
required is to boot up the image and away you go.

For your case I'd go with the VM Ware and failover option for legacy
database. RAC experience is good to have, but is it worth the
learning curve. I can say from experience that setting up well
performing RAC has quite a few more moving parts than does a simple
replication solution using VM.

http://www.miracleas.dk/WritingsFrom...CUSVersion.pdf

On May 11, 11:17 am, "ame... (AT) iwc (DOT) net" <ame... (AT) iwc (DOT) net> wrote:
You should probably read what moans nogood has to say about rac and
high availability.

Unless your organization is staffed, trained, and continually test
themselves most efforts to setup high availability cause less
availability.

On 13 May 2007 03:32:10 -0700, ErikYkema <erik.ykema (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Moans Nogood isn't called Moans Nogood as hpuxrac isn't hpuxrac.
His real name is Mogens Norgaard, he is one of the founders of the
Oaktable Network, and he has his own company in Denmark called
MiracleAs.

--
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA

On May 13, 6:32 am, ErikYkema <erik.yk... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Do people really ask questions like this on cdos before trying a
google search on "moans nogood"?

I guess the answer is yes ... pretty scary to me when these people are
"doing things" related to oracle.

By the way ... you can do the google search with or without the
quotation marks.

See if you can find his paper on why you probably don't need rac.
Read his recent posting on high availability or lack thereof.

Yikes.