Multipath pre-requisites

[satish]

Dear erman,

We are purchasing new hardware for one client for oracle rac environment.Inorder to enable multipath,what type of minimum hardware is required like number of network ports/interface cards,number of switches,storage etc...pls give us some idea.

Is multipath mandatory?
Does multipath works for local disks as well?

Thank you

[ErmanArslansOracleBlog]

You need to be full path redundant. So at least 2 physical ports (maybe differen cards) for each & every component in the I/O path (including HBAs, controllers, san switches and etc..)

[satish]

Thanks for the update...

When we have said environment,in that case

Is multipath mandatory?
Does multipath works for local disks as well?

Thank you

[ErmanArslansOracleBlog]

Multipath is a good thing to have :)
If you fail in one path, you continue from other path. You can even go active active..
So it s about accesing the disks.. You can do it both for local and SAN disks.. But! you need to have the multiple access paths for accesing your disk drives.. If you don't have multiple access paths ( Multiple controller, multiple ports etc..), then there is no need to implement a multipath conf.