ScaleDB and Oracle RAC are both clustered databases that use a shared-disk architecture. As I have mentioned previously, they both actually share data via a shared cache, so it might be more appropriate to call them shared-cache databases.

Whether it is called shared-disk or shared-cache, these databases must orchestrate the sharing of a single set of data amongst multiple nodes. This introduces two challenges: the physical sharing of the data and the logical sharing of the data.

Physical Sharing:
Raw storage is meant to work on a 1:1 basis with a single server. In order to share that data amongst multiple servers, you need either a Network File System (NFS), which shares whole files, or a Cluster File System (CFS), which shares data blocks.






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