Is it possible to run a large Oracle database (7TB) on Amazon EC2 + EBS?

Question

I am wondering if Amazon EC2 + EBS can handle large Oracle databases (with 7TB to start). It looks like EBS can have storage volumes of up to 1 TB, and I can have many storage volumes attached to a single instance of EC2, but is it possible then to configure Oracle to use these storage volumes so that the database can grow up to 7 TB and higher?

To continue this, I would suggest Oracle database administrators, but I want to find out if this is even a valid approach or should we look elsewhere?

What other options are there for large (7-15 TB) databases in the cloud?

Answer 1

Yes, you can. But it can be painful. For instances of this size you want: backup to tape, fast storage, and most importantly, Automatic Storage Management (ASM).

When using ASM: you can run oracle processes in the cloud and not in storage. It is impossible to really use ASM in the cloud, it uses special hardware instructions for fast storage, the virtual machine will interfere and make it too slow.

Running an oracle without ASM for 5 TB + data is not practical.

Important: If you have 5 TB of DATA, you need to CONSTANTly 13 TB of disk space to run an instance of Oracle HA.

At my company, we are running Oracle 15TB in the cloud, but we hired dedicated storage devices. You cannot do this with Amazon. (try mediatemple)