Preparing the Operating System for the Database Server

You must perform additional tasks to prepare your operating system for the database server. You might need the assistance of the system administrator in order to perform these tasks:

• Set up node names
• Understand operating system administration facilities

Setting Up Node Names

The hardware architecture of your computer platform and the intended use of your database server both play a role in determining the appropriate number of coservers that you configure.

A basic rule of thumb for configuring coservers is one coserver per node. However, the following exceptions to this rule apply to the following types of parallel-processing platforms:

• If your platform consists of only one computer with between eight and ten (depending on the platform) or fewer CPUs, you can choose the single-coserver configuration option for ease of administration.
• If your platform is an SMP computer with more than eight or ten CPUs, or if the physical memory available on the computer is more than double the size of the virtual address space of a single process, you can improve performance by configuring multiple coservers.
• If your platform is an SMP computer that can be partitioned into independent computing subsystems, you can achieve both ease of administration and improved performance by partitioning the computer and configuring a single coserver per subsystem. In this case, each subsystem is regarded as an individual node for configuration purposes.

For more information about configuring coservers, refer to Coserver Configuration.

Your system administrator specifies the node names and the IP addresses in your operation system hosts file on each node. It is suggested that you share the same hosts file across all of the nodes on your platform. For more information about this file, see Connectivity Files.

If the operating system requires it, the system administrator defines one set of host names for network access and another set of host names for access through the high-speed communication interface or network. Use the appropriate host names for high-speed communication between nodes in the NODE configuration parameter in your ONCONFIG file. For a description, see Host Name Field.

Using Operating-System Administration Facilities

Each operating system has its own set of tools for administration of multiple nodes and users. For example, these tools include a central console and possibly the kerberos utility or various platform support programs. Your operating-system administration guide indicates which of these tools are applicable for database server system administration on your hardware platform.

If your operating system uses a central console, you can use that console to manage and maintain all of the nodes on that platform. Some operating systems refer to the console as a central-control workstation. Other operating systems refer to it as an administrative workstation.