A UBM WHITE PAPER JANUARY 2010

Clustering Database Applications to Lower IT Cost

Reorganizing for efficiency, performance and high availability

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UBM WHITE PAPER | Clustering Database Applications to Lower IT Cost

Clustering Database Applications to Lower IT Cost

Reorganizing for efficiency, performance and high availability

Introduction Clustering is a new mandate within a responsible IT data center. For more than eight years enterprises around the globe have used Oracle Real Applications Clusters (RAC) to apply the principles of grid computing at the database tier, adding their stories to a towering spire of evidence that a clustered architecture can save organizations millions of dollars. Customers across all industries are clustering their transaction processing and data warehousing applications to deliver a higher quality of service at a lower cost. Benefits of clustering your database applications using Oracle RAC include: high availability improved resource utilization scalability manageability support for dynamic workloads and new types of applications FIGURE 1: In traditional enterprise application architecture hardware and software resources, including databases, are intentionally isolated and, ultimately, underutilized.

This paper will look at the advantages of clustering, in an attempt to show exactly why this innovative architecture returns such consistent value to the enterprises that adopt it. It will show the direct cause and effect relationship between database clustering and IT efficiencies that add up to big savings. Traditional vs. Grid Architecture Traditional computing architecture relies on silos of hardware and software resources, which are dedicated to various applications or data center functions. This inflexible design makes it impossible to route your excess compute power wherever the current demand is greatest (see Figure 1). In fact, according to Forrester Research, database servers are only 30 percent utilized on average. While underutilization provides a comfortable safety net for demand peaks in any given application, it is nevertheless a staggering waste of resources when aggregated across the entire IT infrastructure. Clustered architecture resolves this dilemma by rationalizing hardware and software to fully leverage existing processing power and storage capacity. With clustering there is dynamic provisioning and pooling of resources, which results in higher efficiency as well as availability, scalability, and high performance. Oracle RAC can help organizations achieve utilization of their database servers in the 80 to 90 percent range, while simultaneously improving their service level reliability. The top reasons to adopt clustering include: improve ROI for IT infrastructure minimize administration and improve operational efficiency lower total cost of IT improve service-level availability for applications support new types of applications via clusterings flexible architecture

Typical Enterprise Application Deployments

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UBM WHITE PAPER | Clustering Database Applications to Lower IT Cost

Clustering for Availability, Scalability and Performance Traditional siloed architecture forces IT to place strict priority on applications that require failover protection. Adding a second, redundant server to any given applications stack is wise, but ultimately expensive. As shown in Figure 2, the most missioncritical applications in the portfolio typically will get a dedicated server for redundancy while other applications are forced to make do with no provision for redundancy, making them vulnerable to downtime. Clustering allows the organization to share the costand the benefitsof redundancy across multiple applications, and perhaps even across the entire application portfolio. In a clustered architecture, the addition of as little as a single node can provide the starting point for a robust redundancy that protects multiple applications. This low-cost entry point to high availability is impossible to achieve in a traditional architecture. In addition to high availability, many organizations today are motivated by their increasing need for high performance and scalability, largely because of a greater interest and business demand for mission critical web-based applications. WebFIGURE 2: Because all hardware resources are strictly isolated, redundancy requires an expensive allocation of even more wasted computing power, while other applications are left vulnerable.

In addition, clustering gives organizations the ability to start small and expand their infrastructure on an as-needed basis. Companies today do not have the luxury of being able to bring down the database for infrastructure expansion or for periodic updates and maintenance. With clustered architecture you can dynamically add more nodes, more CPUs and more system resources on the fly without shutting down the databases. Administration: Doing More with Less Todays modern enterprises, especially those supporting large web-based applications, can have database servers numbered in the thousands. With this volume of databases, configuration and management tasks alone would represent a very significant time commitment. Handling database failures at this scale is a potential disaster for which the organization must be equipped. Clustering insulates the business from the worst possible outcomes of database failure, making it possible to manage a large and growing pool of databases without administrative sprawl. But more importantly, because each machine can safely be utilized more fully, clustering gives organizations the opportunity to consolidate their database infrastructure. Fewer servers have an obvious and immediate savings effect in administrative overhead. Finally, clustering allows DBAs to spend their time more productively, concentrating on proactive tasks and activities that advance business objectives, and spending less time in reactive mode. In short, clustering allows DBAs to do more with less. Reaping the Advantages of Flexible Architecture For many of the benefits of clustering we can thank clusterings innate flexible architecture. But what does it really mean to have a flexible architecture? And how does a flexible architecture deliver cost-saving efficiency to IT? The essence of clustered architecture is a shared cache distributed across multiple virtual or physical servers. As discussed above, this yields unsurpassed high availability for the database as well as an easy-to-scale capability by allowing additional servers and database instances to be added to the cluster in a non-disruptive fashion. Oracle RAC can automatically balance workloads across the cluster resources as well to avoid hot and cold nodes in the cluster (see Figure 3). But the benefits do not stop there. This shared pool architecture creates a number of

Provisions for High Availability are Rarely Deployed Across the Whole Stack

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High availability is often limited to cetain apps.

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based applications, particularly customer-facing applications, such as e-commerce, require the highest levels of performance and yet they are often plagued by volatile demand. The satisfaction of these conflicting requirements demands the flexibility and scalability of clustered architecture.

UBM WHITE PAPER | Clustering Database Applications to Lower IT Cost

FIGURE 3: A clustered architecture using Oracle RAC allows a pool of databases to dynamically respond to the needs of multiple applications, assuring high availability.

Oracle Real Application Clusters

HR SALES ERP

New, low-cost servers running on high-speed Intel Nehalem chips, for example, when clustered together properly, can mimic the power of a supercomputer. And, of course, existing hardware, regardless of operating system, can always be leveraged in a clustered environment, maximizing the value of past IT investments. Ability to do real-time business intelligence Organizations today often find that they need to extract business intelligence from their databases early and often. Thus data warehousing is becoming much more real time. Data has to move from transaction processing to data warehousing much more quickly than it ever did beforeevery hour or even every minute. Oracle RAC makes it possible to put transaction systems and warehouses on the same cluster. This means up-to-the-second transaction data is immediately available to the data warehouse and reporting applications, delivering a huge value for the organization that relies on the resulting realtime business intelligence. Fast provisioning for non-production databases Clustering makes it not only possible, but downright effortless, to create a database instance. Application developers appreciate (and frequently require) a non-production database for simulation and testing of new applications. Because Oracle RAC allows you to deploy multiple databases in a clusterin some cases up to 200 databases in one clusteryou can configure and deploy a non-production database in as little as 20 seconds. Not only does this lighten the load on your team of DBAs significantly, but it simultaneously offers an enhanced quality of service to the organization at large. Lower Total Cost of IT The many benefits of clustering and the new opportunities provided by clustered architecture combine to make a very powerful platform for IT cost savings. How do all these advantages add up to such significant cost savings? Lets look at a simple list of where clustering typically saves money in the IT organization: Maximizing resource utilization for servers, including CPU, memory and compute power Maximizing resource utilization for storage, including SAN and NAS Consolidating IT infrastructure; less hardware needed to support greater loads Maximizing efficiency of DBAs; opportunity

Runs all Oracle database applications Highly available and scalable Adapts to changes in workloads

unique strategic advantages that go beyond availability, scalability, management, and performance. Supporting dynamic workloads More and more organizations today are finding reasons to develop and support applications with dynamic workloads, such as web-based applications, which have unpredictable user demand. Clustering delivers the right supportive framework to take the risk out of such applications. The ability to scale on the fly means new resources can be added as needed and thus mission-critical applications with unpredictable load are not a business liability. This peace of mind also means organizations can be more aggressive in expanding their application portfolios, trying out new application types that may be appropriate for future business goals. For example, with clustering firmly entrenched in your IT infrastructure your organization can consider undertaking private cloud applications, which can ultimately reduce reliance on thirdparty application providers and open up new revenue opportunities. Introducing low-cost commodity hardware Clustering is not about any particular server or databasethe whole idea is to focus on the sum of the parts. Once a clustered architecture has been adopted, organizations dont necessarily need the heavy machinery of an SMP server for transaction processing anymore. Clustering provides the flexibility to upgrade to a modern, modular data center using low-cost, commodity hardware that is easy to swap out or upgrade.

UBM WHITE PAPER | Clustering Database Applications to Lower IT Cost

to support proactive, future-looking business initiatives and/or reduce total cost of human resources Introducing use of low-cost, commodity hardware in place of expensive SMP servers; modernizing data center infrastructure Improving availability and thereby insulating the organization against the costly outcomes of downtime Lowering license fees Supporting opportunities for growthoriented and potentially profitable new business initiatives In addition, some enterprises save by deferring hardware upgrade costs. Many IT organizations adhere to a traditional policy wherein databases must be upgraded when utilization rates hit 60 percent. In a clustered architecture, such upgrades are simply unnecessary. IT can defer the cost of database upgrades and wring more business value out of sunk costs. Because there are so many ways that clustering contributes to lower cost, the total savings can be very significant. At many enterprises, savings can easily reach millions of dollars. A large retailer saved $2.5 million moving from a large SMP server to 8-node cluster using Dell blade servers A bank saved $5.8 million when it moved away from multiple large SMP servers to clustered servers in 4-node to 12-node configurations A telco saved $3.1 million by moving a very large SMP server to a 16-node clustered configuration A large technology company made 8-node clusters a standard configuration for all database deploymentsincluding nonproductionsaving 30 percent. What to Look for in a Clustering Solution? Clustering is a major architectural change for IT and thus, choosing a software solution for a clustering implementation is a major decision. Forrester Research Principal Analyst Noel Yuhanna offers the following guidance for selecting your clustering solution: Make sure its simple to deploy. The initial phases of moving to a clustered architecture will require many hours of planning and undoubtedly a few logistical hurdles along the way. Youll have enough to think about without adding the burden of a complex software deployment.

Make sure your existing team can handle the deployment process with minimal effort. Automatic load balancing capability. A clustering solution should balance loads across all nodes in the cluster without any manual configuration, thus assuring the most efficient operation with no additional effort. Easy to provision resources when needed. To get the most benefit out of clustering both in terms of availability and low costyou should expect to put multiple databases on each cluster. A good clustering solution will make this simple. Adaptable to unique business needs. Your IT organization has policies in place to ensure compliance with best practices and regulatory requirements, and those policies are likely to evolve or change over time. A clustering software solution should be able to help you enforce these policies, when appropriate, and update them as needed. Offer seamless integration with current applications and environments. Your clusters will be supporting many packaged and custom applications already in use at the organization, including large, mission-critical applications such as ERP. You should expect your clustering solution to integrate seamlessly with these applications, without application modifications or new APIs. Support many types of applications. XML applications, transactional applications, and data warehouse/business intelligence applications should all run seamlessly in whatever cluster configuration you choose.

Oracle RAC is designed from the ground up to fulfill all of these requirements of simplicity, manageability, and ease of integration. Best Practices for a Clustering Implementation No matter how seamless your clustering solution deployment may be, moving from traditional to clustered architecture requires some planning and strategic thinking. Taking stock of the following best practices helps you ensure that youve done your homework properly and can thus expect a smooth deployment with big upside potential. Perform a classification and group applications accordingly. You already know that all applications are not equal. You may have a thousand databases in your enterprise but they dont all have identical availability

UBM WHITE PAPER | Clustering Database Applications to Lower IT Cost

requirements or common workloads. Do a workload analysis and classify each database based on availability needs. Applications with SLAs in the 99.999 percent uptime range should not be clustered with applications that have lower availability requirements. Similarly, group applications together that have CPU, memory, and storage space requirements in common. Management of the cluster is critical. Clustering cuts across the whole stack so make sure that the people you put in charge of the clustering deployment have the expertise to manage across the stack as well. Define policies based on application priority and workload requirements. Dont make the mistake of neglecting policy setting. For example, set limits on how much of the available resources in the cluster each application can consume. Automation is important. Take the time to set up automation routines to handle failovers as well as client connections. Train your staff on clustering. Moving to a clustered architecture can be difficult in the early stages, but preparing your staff adequately is your best insurance against pitfalls. Make sure DBAs, system administrators, and even application developers understand how the clustering technology works and what the business goals are. This will minimize the risk of human error that can derail a successful launch or bring an entire cluster down.

strategy. Clustering offers many advantages over traditional application architecture that can deliver unsurpassed quality of service, high availability, and on-the-fly scalability. If you are in the early stages of researching clustering technology for your enterprise, here are some key points to keep in mind: Clustering can be incremental. Start small and add more nodes and clusters as needed. Clustering can support any application packaged or customincluding Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel, SAP, etc. Clustering can save money through consolidation, improved availability, and infrastructure sharing. Clustering lets DBAs do more with less, improving their overall efficiency and lowering the total cost of IT. Since it was first introduced in 2001, Oracle RAC has been chosen by thousands of enterprises. Companies of every size and in every industry have embraced the reliability and scalability benefits of RAC. Over the years, Oracle RAC has been continually fine-tuned to meet and exceed customers increasing demands for a more streamlined installation process, a simplified method of adding nodes, and the ability to create larger clusters with a higher number of nodes. As the foundation of Oracles grid computing methodology, enterprises can use Oracle RAC as a launching point for broader implementations of grid architecture, spreading the performance and reliability benefits into the middle-tier or storage layers.

Summary For todays modern enterprises, clustering is an absolutely essential component of the DBMS

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