::: eNSYNC Solutions :::

Gaylord Chemical

Standby databases.. cheap backup or cheap insurance!

If you have been running your ERP system for more than a year or two chances are your database contains millions of records and transactions that are now worth more to the organization than the cost to set it up was in the beginning. That's big buck$. Your basic back up to tape, while important to do, does not necessarily mean rapid recovery.

Who: Gaylord Chemical located in Slidell, LA.

Why: Implemented an Oracle Standby database to protect the investment made in putting data into the database and the ability to fail over to another server should the primary server fail. Gaylord Chemical is located in the Hurricane belt and they wanted to protect themselves from data loss due to natural disasters in additional to more traditional forms of data loss such as a server crash or data deletion.

What: Using a combination of Oracle Standard Edition (8.1.7.4) and a set of Windows 2000 batch files eNSYNC implemented an easily managed Oracle failover solution. The standby database wakes up twice per day and imports any outstanding archive logs. It then shuts down the database and waits for the next wake event. The import process generally takes less than 5 minutes. To complete the process, Gaylord Chemical will ship the standby database server to one of their remote facilities. The archive logs will then be moved over the WAN.

In summary, the new standby database met the goals and needs of the client. Everyone knew what was expected from the very beginning and good communication between the client, consultant, and sales staff helped make the project a success.

When: The project was started on a Tuesday morning and the database was setup, configured, and implemented by Thursday afternoon. As part of the project, the IT staff was trained on the use of Oracle (installation, configuration, tuning, etc...) and was involved with hands on tasks in implementing the fail over solution. During the 3 day project we,

• Upgraded the operating system from Windows NT to Windows 2000 on the primary server
• Installed Windows 2000 on the standby server.
• Upgraded Oracle from 8.1.5 to 8.1.7.4 on both servers.
• Configured and deployed the Oracle Standby database.
• Tested the applications on the primary and standby servers.
• Delivered the standby server to a remote location 45 miles away from the production server.