High Availability Database System

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High Availability Database System

Today, we depend so heavily on information systems that system outage or loss of data is more and more intolerable. Sometimes the loss of critical data relates directly to the survivability of an enterprise. This draws our attention to the dependability of information system. According to dependability is “the ability to avoid service failures that are more frequent and more severe than is acceptable” and availability is one of the most important attributes of dependability. Since database systems are the back end of most information system, their availability is critical to the availability of whole information system.
Ensuring the continuous availability of the computing resources in the enterprise is a primary objective of today’s database administrator (DBA). All the computing horsepower in the world and secure/defensive application coding makes little difference if users and customers cannot access the resources that they depend upon to carry out their job functions. If the database and servers that support the application are unavailable, it can cost the organization both monetarily as well as in terms of reputation and goodwill. Depending on the nature of the organization and the type of application, the costs for service outages can be enormous.
Databases and also the internet have enabled worldwide collaboration and data sharing by extending the reach of database applications throughout organizations and communities. This reach emphasizes the importance of high accessibility in information management solutions. Each tiny businesses and world enterprises have users everywhere the world that needs access to information 24 hours each day. While not this information access, operations will s...

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...thening the combination of people, processes, and technology. A plan that focuses purely on technology will never achieve very high levels of availability because many of the significant factors that affect availability stem from the interaction of people and processes. Preparing the proper hardware and software platform is only a starting point. From that point on, high availability is the result of good planning and practices in combination with the appropriate technologies.
The need for high availability is driven by your business requirements—not by the presence of a specific technology. While creating a highly available environment is always desirable, it’s important to remember that the higher the level of availability that you need, the higher the associated cost. Thus, it is critical to really understand the level of availability that your business needs.

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