Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

Oracle10g Grid Computing with RAC
Chapter 6 - Install, Configure and Database Creation

Interconnect

There is a wide variety of technology. Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity provide high bandwidth and are widely used. However, such general purpose interconnect technology may not offer acceptable latency. To that end, special interconnect products like Memory Channel for HP Tru64 (TruCuster), Hyper Fabric Interconnect for HP-UX clusters, and SCI adapters for SunPlex Clusters should be preferred wherever possible.

In addition, there is Infiniband interconnect architecture for Linux based systems, which is being provided by vendors such as Mellanox and TopSpin. TopSpin Clustering kit provides Infiniband switch multiple ports, Fiber Channel Gateway for SAN storage or Ethernet gateway for NAS storage, 10 Gbps Infiniband Host Channel Bus Adapters.

In another example, SunPlex Cluster systems offers support for Remote Shared Memory technology (RSM), which enhances the performance of distributed applications by allowing for fast messaging between instances of a distributed application. RSM improves bandwidth and reduces the latency many-fold, allowing a SunPlex/Oracle RAC deployment to deliver superior performance.