My company needs to make a decision.

We currently have an Oracle database running on a Sun 5500 with Sun Cluster 2.2 software installed. We have Veritas Volume Manager, and another Sun 5500 that should be (in theory) included in the cluster.

The problem is that the second machine was not set up properly during development. The system is 7 by 24 and we can tolerate only a few hours of planned maintenance per quarter. Thus trial and error on the prod system is absolutely unacceptable.

One possibility is to dismantle the cluster, cut the fiber channel between the two servers, and run a standby database on the second server. In that case, we have concerns about creating a new disk group on the storage network and we have doubts that the storage network will function smoothly without the cluster running. Clearly our knowledge and skills are not on parallel with our technology.

We can either spend the money on consulting and get the cluster running properly and try to acquire Veritas and Sun Cluster skills later on or spend money on consulting, remove the cluster software, run the two servers with a primary on one and a standby on the other. Either way, we will need to bring in outside expertise.

I prefer setting up the cluster correctly. It seems that if it is running, our risk of downtime is almost zero and the failover is automatic.

One other constraint: management wants 100% uptime with no cost.

Any opinions about the complexity of removing cluster software or administration of a cluster are appreciated.