Quest Software announced today version 1.0 of Quest Spotlight on Oracle RAC, the newest extension of Quest Software’s patented Spotlight product family. Spotlight on Oracle RAC is the first product available to provide a graphical view on the internal performance of Oracle RAC. Presenting diagnostic data from all perspectives of a multi-level RAC environment – node, cluster, interconnect and shared disks – the new product enables DBAs to proactively pinpoint and resolve potential cluster database performance problems before they impact end users.

Spotlight on Oracle RAC enhances the reliability of Oracle RAC by graphically presenting critical system data from within the Oracle RAC “black box,” simplifying real-time system diagnosis and making that diagnosis more intuitive. The new product delivers an immediate graphical view of the health and activity of the cluster database as a whole. It also shows the status of each individual instance in the cluster and allows DBAs to drill down into each instance for problem resolution as needed.

“Breakthrough technologies like Oracle RAC are becoming commonplace, and DBAs are increasingly managing several Oracle RACs with complicated configurations – a daunting task,” said Tarry Singh, senior DBA/architect at Hanze University in the Netherlands. “I have used scripts to monitor Oracle RAC in the past and was desperately looking for a tool that would provide a visual representation of how my cluster is performing. With Spotlight on Oracle RAC, I’ve found just that. It allows a single Oracle DBA to manage more complex Oracle RAC environments and enables in-depth diagnostics.”

Featuring detailed performance metrics and customizable alarming, Spotlight on Oracle RAC pinpoints cluster bottlenecks and inefficiencies, including problems with cluster balance, cluster interconnect and the cluster shared disk system. It also reduces time-to-resolution by as much as 95 percent through built-in expert diagnostics and advice, intuitive visual presentations for identifying issues, and a tuning guide for enhancing DBA efficiency.

“The release of version 1.0 of Spotlight on Oracle RAC further underscores Quest’s leadership and depth of expertise in Oracle database management,” said Larry Humphries, vice president of product management, Application and Database Management Solutions, Quest Software. “With the increasing adoption of Oracle RAC, more and more organizations require a robust diagnostic solution to ensure that their critical RAC deployments remain available and performing at optimum levels. Spotlight on Oracle RAC delivers powerful diagnostic capabilities for the complex multi-level RAC architecture so that companies can realize the full cost advantages of their RAC solution.”

The need for system diagnostics is expected to grow as industry adoption of Oracle RAC increases. “Oracle RAC has come a long way in establishing itself as a key technology in delivering unparalleled high availability and scalability solutions for Oracle databases,” writes Noel Yuhanna, in the report: Oracle RAC Gains Momentum, Forrester Research, Inc., September 15, 2005. “Forrester estimates that there are more than 1,200 customers who are currently using RAC in production, and this is likely to double in the next 12 to 18 months as enterprises look to deploy low-cost commodity servers and extend their applications to support higher availability.”