ORACLE REAL APPLICATION CLUSTERS 11G

Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) is an option to Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition and included with Oracle Database 11g Standard Edition (on clusters with a maximum of four sockets). Oracle RAC supports the deployment of a single database across a cluster of servers — providing unbeatable fault tolerance, performance and scalability with no application changes necessary.

Benefits:

• 24/7 availability — Provide continuous uptime for database applications

• On-demand scalability — Expand capacity by simply adding servers to your cluster
• Lower computing costs — Use low-cost commodity hardware and reduce cost of downtime

• World record performance — Runs faster than the fastest mainframe

• Grid computing — Oracle RAC is the foundation for grid computing

What is RAC?

Oracle’s RAC option supports the transparent deployment of a single database across a cluster of servers, providing fault tolerance from hardware failures or planned outages. Oracle RAC running on clusters provides Oracle’s highest level of capability in terms of availability, scalability and low-cost computing. It supports mainstream business applications of all kinds, including OLTP, DSS, and mixed OLTP/DSS environments. This also includes popular packaged products such as SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Oracle E*Business Suite, as well as custom applications.

Oracle RAC provides a single image installation and management. The DBA has a single point of control to install and manage a RAC cluster from the GUI interface or command line.

Continuous Availability

Oracle RAC provides very high availability for applications by removing the single point of failure with a single server. If a node in the cluster fails, the Oracle Database continues running on the remaining nodes. Individual nodes can be shutdown for
maintenance while application users continue to work.

Fast Application Notification (FAN), enables end-to-end, lights-out recovery of applications and load balancing when a cluster configuration changes. A FAN event is posted and server-side callouts are executed when a state change occurs within the cluster. The application tier can receive the FAN event and react appropriately.

Flexible Scalability

Oracle RAC provides flexibility for scaling applications. To keep costs low, clusters can be built from standardized, commodity-priced processing, storage, and network components. When you need more processing power, simply add another server without taking users offline servers to gain horizontal scalability. Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC support up to 100 nodes in the cluster.

Enabling Enterprise Grids

Oracle RAC enables enterprise Grids. Enterprise Grids are built from standardized, commodity-priced processing, storage and network components. Oracle RAC enables the Oracle Database to run on this platform and provides the highest levels of capability
in terms of availability and scalability. Nodes, storage, CPUs, and memory can all be dynamically provisioned while the system remains online. This allows service levels to be easily and efficiently maintained while lowering cost still further through improved utilization.