I am trying to order some hardware for a RH Enterprise installation of
Oracle RAC on 9i. I wanted to use blade servers however I have heard
some discussion that RAC requires to extra ports for its funtionality
(1 prod,1 non prod, 1 backup, 2 - crossover ?). Please advise.

DR wrote:
> I am trying to order some hardware for a RH Enterprise installation of
> Oracle RAC on 9i. I wanted to use blade servers however I have heard
> some discussion that RAC requires to extra ports for its funtionality
> (1 prod,1 non prod, 1 backup, 2 - crossover ?). Please advise.

I would stay away from blades unless you have some desire to waste
money. Until there is a blade standard anything you buy today may well
be incompatible with what you buy tomorrow.

Here's what you need at a minimum:

3 interfaces
One for public ... this is how the client's connect.
One for cache fusion ... this is for the memory interconnect.
One for storage ... the exact nature of which depends on the storage
solution you implement.

Under no circumstances should you use a cross-over cable as Oracle
does not support it. Get a small Gig Switch and use it. Also the
switch gives you the ability to have more than 2 nodes.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)