Oracle 9iRAC - Clustering on Linux/Firewire

Introduction

Ever since the announcement of Oracle 9i, Oracle's Real Application Clustering feature has created quite a stir. For those not familiar, 9iRAC is a complete overhaul of Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) from previous versions of the database into a workable product.

For many DBA's, however, this technology is completely out of reach. Without an employer who has already committed to OPS and wants to upgrade, or a client who would like to venture into the unknown, there's no way to get ahold of an en\vironment on which to test it. The lowest entry option for clustering technology has been Fibre Channel. Unfortunately cost is prohibitive.

Enter Oracle's new Linux Firewire project. To some, this announcement is as exciting as Oracle's first announcement of a port of their RDBMS to the Linux platform. Through the release of various Open Source software components, such as a modified ieee1394 driver for sharing external Firewire disks, a clustered filesystem (OCFS), as well as a number of other interesting components, this platform is now within our reach at very low cost.

Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - Basic Costs + Hardware Platform Outline
Part 3 - Software Requirements, Versions, etc
Part 4 - Initial Oracle Setup
Part 5 - Firewire + OCFS Setup
Part 6 - Cluster Manager Setup
Part 7 - Cluster Database Setup
Part 8 - Review of Clustered Features + Architecture
Part 9 - A quick 9iRAC example
Part 10 - Summary