rp2470 servers and a future with Oracle 10G(10.1)

[Steven E. Protter]

Facts:
rp24xx series end of life was January 1, 2005. HP recommends rp34xx series instead.

8 GB is the maximum possible RAM on these systems.

rp2470 servers are 64 bit capable.

I've got an internal customer with 4 rp2470 servers running 11.00 and Oracle 8.1.7.4, 32 bit OS install.

Currently the boxes have 750 MB and actually run quite nicely.

Someone decided that these Serviceguard Database servers should not be run past OS end of life, even though they are being run past hardware end of life.

I know that if the systems had hardware support replacing them with warranty systems would pay for the new systems very quicky.

Issue:
The machines don't have hardware suppport and have proven reliable so a pay if they break policy was instituted to save money.

11.11 and Oracle 10.1 are needed to comply with my companies current guidelines on software. Apparently we don't have hardware guidelines in this case.

So the proposal is to bump up the RAM to 2 GB and do a cold install of the OS, Servicguard and the database. This will bring the systems into compliance with our software guidelines.

In 18 months a planned database upgrade to Oracle 10.2 is planned.

Issue: I know its stupid to run crtical production on systems that are past hardware end of life.

Issue: I also know that new hardware will accommodate growth in use of the systems. The current four systems are not heavily utilized and have probably not paged swap in their running lifetimes.

Issue: I know these systems SHOULD be replaced.

Questions:
1) Is anyone running rp2470 systems with Oracle 10.1 and HP-UX 11.11? If so how much memory is needed for smooth operation of a system that could have occaisionally heavy transaction load?

2) Will 2 GB do the job.

3) Are the CPU's up for the OS and SG and the database?

4) Is memory for these boxes prohibitively expensive from HP partners?

Thoughts from people who are not running these applications and just want to offer sage Sysadmin advice are welcome but won't get bunnies.

If you are running systems like these and have experiences and recommendations, please share.

Thank You.

SEP

[Stefan Schulz]

Hi Steven,

i cant talk about Oragle 10.1 but i do have a rp2470 with HP-UX 11.11 running a Oracle 9.1.4 database (64Bit).

The server is equiped with 4GB RAM and is running a database with about 20GB size. This is no production system but i do test heavy searches on this which puts some stress to the server.

So far it is running really fine. But still the rp2470 was not fast enough for our prduction system where we have a 40GB Database with 200 users connected which do a lot of searching. Because of this excessive searches we have a pretty large index and a big SGA. Our prduction system is a rp3440 with 16GB RAM.

In your case i dont know how big you have to define your SGA and how many connections you will have, but i would consider buying some more memory.

I dont consider the memory expensive if you use refurbished modules or compatible moduls from e.g. Kingston.

IMHO the rp2470 is a pretty and reliable box which is worth keeping alive for some more work to do.

Kind Regards

Stefan

[Steven E. Protter]

Thanks,

This project consists of two SG clusters, two machines per. The Oracle database and ancillary applications support 1 million customers. I can't be more specific than that, but it is about the size of your system. To find out that you don't trust that for production leads me to believe that we have a problem and my recommendation to replace the hardware should be implemented.

I'm going to assign points when I close the thread. I appreciate the input.

Regards,

SEP

[Volker Borowski]

Hi SEP,

I just E-Bay-searched "rp2470 memory" 2GB for your box at 900 USD. No idea if this is cheap or expensive. Anyway, it is a good idea to some vital parts as a spare availbale for retired systems.

If the application runs stable and you do not need current security fixes to be up to date, I would NOT go for this change.

Who knows if the new OS will deliver correspondig hardware/driver patches for retired hardware at all. If you end up stuck with a driver problem upon your new install, you need to back out to 11.00.

Are all of the 4 boxes productive ?
If no, migrate one QA box out of duty and you'll have the spare part problem solved already. This gives you lot of time to check with the migrated System what will be the needs for future tin to run on.

Volker

[Stefan Schulz]

Hi Steven,

allthough we have a really pragmatic approach to these things here, i have to be honest. Even i would not run a server productive beyond end of life without a backup system.

If i had four identical servers and could have two as backup (ready configured as cold standby) i would run them productive. Otherwise I would not take over the responsibility.

But i have only some hundred internal "customers" and i dont need to be up to date with the security patches as these servers are not accessable from the outside.

Kind regards

Stefan

[Julio Yamawaki]

Hi,

We have a production cluster with following configuration:
. L2000 with 2 440 MHz procs, 2 GB mem
. rp2470with 2 650 MHz procs, 2 GB mem
. 2 ds-2100 with 4 36 GBs each (mirrored)
. HP-UX 11.11
. MC/Serviceguard 11.16
. Oracle 10.1.0.1
. Microfocus Cobol - host-based
. Visual Basic - client server
. 100 clients
. Application made in-house
. Medical company

Until now, we don't have performance problems (even when the package failover to L2000 node - rp2470 is the primary).
We used MC/SG 11.14 until last august, when we made an upgrade to 11.16.

Regards,