turning a workstation into server?

[jane zhang]

Hi all,
We need to set up standby database of our oracle databases.
Currently our databases is residing on a HP-UX server B.11.00 U 9000/800 with Auto RAID (10GB disk space) .
I located another UNIX workstation HP-UX B.10.20 U 9000/785 which is not a tower server, the total hard drive is only around 2.5 GB.
I understand we need to update the disk space, memory, and the OS for configuring standby databases.
I am wondering if it is feasible to expand it to the comparable capacity of our current server, and what it will take to achieve this?

Thank you for the advice.

Jane

[harry d brown jr]

Jane,

What is your current sever?

live free or die
harry

[jane zhang]

Hi,
Our unix server is
HP-UX server B.11.00 U 9000/800 with Auto RAID (10GB disk space)
Thank you,

[S.K. Chan]

Typically a "standby" (even though not a hot-standby setup here) DB server, depending on the downtime impact, is always better to have the same server architecture as the "primary" DB server. You would still have to purchase additional disk and memory then why not purchase an entry level 800s to do this (if cost is an issue).

[harry d brown jr]

Jane,

what does "model" return on your database server?

And this question is very difficult to answer because there are a lot of unknowns:

(1) how many users?
(2) how important is the data to be available to the users?
(3) how much money is lost per hour if that data is unavailable to the users?
(4) how long can you be down before it becomes a serious issue?
(5) How much memory and resources does each user require?
(6) If you are using a standby server, are the userz willing to have degraded performance?
...

live free or die
harry

[jane zhang]

Hi
Thank you for the response.
Because the cost is a issue here, This is why we want to turn the workstation without the AUTO RAID into server by expanding the memory and disk.
But I am not so sure the impact of the structure difference.

[jane zhang]

Harry,
The model of our DB server is 9000/800/N4000-44
, What I am trying to do is to take advantage of our available unix machine for standby databases ( 8.1.6.0.0).
Thanks,

[Mark Greene_1]

Jane,

Your biggest question to answer is if the B.10.20 is upgradable. If there is not enough memory in it now, you will have to add memory just to upgrade it to HP-UX 11. I would not recommend running at different OS levels, even if there is a version of Oracle that will accomodate that. Are you going to run replication from the primary to the backup server as well, or keep updating the backup server via backups from the primary? If you are going the replication route, you will also have to esure that the primary server has sufficient memory and cpu to support that before you look at any secondary server solution.

HTH
mark

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Jane,

I don't hink it would be a good idea to convert a workstation into a server. A Workstation cannot be upgraded to the server level in terms of performance, add-on cards etc.

But if you still want to use the workstation in place of a server, you can go ahead and do that.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[harry d brown jr]

Jane,

There is no way a workstation could even come close in performance with an N-class server. An A-class can, with 2-cpu's can match an N-class with 2-cpu's almost at a 85% performance level.

live free or die
harry