Oracle Database 11g Release 2 High Availability: Maximize Your Availability with Grid Infrastructure, RAC and Data Guard, 2nd Edition

Introduction

In the first edition of this book, we focused on what we called the “High Availability Database Administrator.” However, that term led to the question of just what is meant by High Availability? As a term bandied about among database administrators, this can have different meanings depending on who is interpreting it, who has to implement it, and who is requesting it. After all, how high is high? To many end users and management types, “High Availability” really means the same thing as “always available,” period—no ifs, ands, or buts. But then reality hits, and we realize that there is a cost associated with “always available.” Nothing comes for free. The more mission-critical your system, the more you are willing to invest in ...