Hi Scott — I am trying to understand the nuance behind your comment. When I think of EC2, I kinda think well nothing is supported natively. Software/agents have to deployed onto the instances (AMIs, user data, CodeDeploy, SSM, etc…). Is there some reason that you emphasized this? Just trying to understand your rationale.
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2015/11/self-managed-oracle-rac-on-ec2/
1 Answers
Hi Ccottondc,
This is where I have to remember myself what prompted me to use that word. I’m not an Oracle expert but if I recall, Oracle RAC requires multicast support…which historically wasn’t supported in VPCs–hence EC2 wouldn’t make a good platform.
Now, AWS’s official Oracle Best Practices doc says that if you run VMWare Cloud on AWS, then you can run RAC inside VMWare as it supports multicast (page 13). https://d1.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/best-practices-for-running-oracle-database-on-aws.pdf
So, RAC could run on EC2 but with a VMWare layer in there.
–Scott
Just a sec to follow up on this a little more. Looks like "native" is from an Oracle perspective (at least n part). Here is a line from Oracle’s support for 3rd party cloud doc: “Native” in this context means that the cloud provider must support shared storage as part of their infrastructure as per Oracle’s support policy". That seems to be what we call "throwing shade." https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/options/clustering/overview/rac-cloud-support-2843861.pdf
That same doc also says, "5) Apart from licensing, can Oracle RAC be supported on Third-Party Clouds? Answer: As the licensing restriction documented above currently restricts the use of Oracle RAC in either Amazon’s AWS or Microsoft Windows Azure or any other ThirdParty Cloud for this matter, Oracle has ceased any supportability evaluation of ThirdParty Clouds for Oracle RAC in general. That said, the lack of natively provided shared storage in addition to certain network restrictions that would need to be worked around on most Third-Party Clouds currently prevent Oracle from supporting any Third-Party Cloud for Oracle RAC presently and regardless of technical feasibility. "
And finally, Oracle RAC on EC2 AMI’s released November 2015 -> https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2015/11/self-managed-oracle-rac-on-ec2/
Oracle running on RDS doesnt support RAC. EC2 would depend more on what licensing you own.
Indeed, there is no Oracle running on RDS support for Oracle RAC. I am still wondering what else might be inferred by specifically using the word natively. Is there anything truly natively supported by EC2 (in terms of a database, etc.)?