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Gartner's recent article Oracle RAC Moved to Mainstream Use made me think about how important Oracle's work has been around RAC -- but also how its progress could have been even faster if not for stubborn complexity of the underlying physical infrastructure. Let me explain with an example. Oracle Grid, aka Oracle RAC, allows database administrators to string multiple (I have heard up to 50) x86 white boxes or blades together to create one large Oracle Engine for mission-critical databases. If you lose one blade, the engine is still running while you replace it. If you run out of capacity in the engine, just add another blade and scale or shrink accordingly. But physical infrastructure complexity hurts the stability, scalability and flexibility of larger RAC environments. For example, to set up a 50 node RAC, an IT organization must string an estimated 200 to 300 Network and SAN cables together…the very definition of hairball! I believe RAC adoption for databases has been slowed because of this remaining complexity. As you can see, the server platform holding the RAC node really DOES matter. Eliminate the “hairball” and you can get on with achieving GRID for even the largest installations. Ok. . .so there’s the catch. Most hardware vendors that offer commodity boxes or blades don’t solve the physical complexity problem. Some of the larger SMP machine vendors have solved this, but large SMP machines don’t make sense for RAC. It doesn’t make sense to set up an 8-node RAC with 8 Superdomes. Imagine needing to add a ninth node: ”Boss, I need to buy another superdome . . .can you help?” Now there are a handful of vendors (shameless plug for the Egenera-Dell partnership) that have solutions to counter the physical complexity problem by consolidating IO and leveraging SAN and NAS infrastructure to the fullest. We use blades as do HP and IBM. But, Egenera and Dell PAN System blades are very different. For starters, they’re stateless with most of the physical complexity associated with standard blades replaced by IO and network virtualization software. Stateless blades can be virtually strung together and added to the cluster at the click of a button. Stateless blades means that instead of 300 cables for a 50 node RAC, you end up with 50 cables, a much more manageable issue. After removing the physical complexity of an Oracle Grid by replacing the physical mess with software, our clients have successfully set up double-digit RAC Node environments and maximized their return on investment. Do you agree? Weigh-in with your thoughts.