IBM seems to have "silently" published a new eBook covering the flexible cluster configuration options of Informix.

Listen to Lester Knutsen from Advanced Data Tools and Gary Proctor and Nick Geib from IBM when they talk about how easy it is to run an Informix database cluster on IBM Bladeserver hardware:

If you are interested in running certified IBM Informix MACH11 cluster configurations on IBM x BladeCenter hardware then the following website will give your further details on this new IBM Hardware/Software bundle offering:

• Informix Cluster Configurations

HP takes Informix seriously

There are two interesting whitepapers available from IBM's (hardware) competitor HP.

The first one discusses how to to scale up and scale out with IDS 11.5 on HP Integrity Servers thru the HP Virtual Server environment. This is an excellent example that shows the versatility of IDS that is able to scale on a single SMP machine as well as on a cluster of (SMP) machines.

Oracle RAC running mad

Excerpt:

CRS is used in conjunction with Oracle's Real Application Clusters 
software, which allows one Oracle database to be deployed on a group 
of servers or "nodes," providing fault tolerance and scalability.

The "leap second event" is causing CRS nodes to reboot, according to 
an Oracle document detailing the problem. Among the affected platforms 
are Oracle Server Enterprise Edition Version 10.1.0.2 to 11.1.0.7; 
Sun Solaris SPARC (64-bit); and Oracle CRS and patchsets 10.2.0.1 to 
11.1.0.7. 

I thought that one of the main reasons for setting up a database cluster is to increase availability and fault tolerance. It seems that Oracle missunderstood that :-) So what is the real meaning of the RAC abbreviation ?: