ASM does several important things.

It behaves like a volume manager.
It behaves like a cluster file system.
It behaves like a software mirror.

Plus, it's designed for oracle data files.

Downside? It doesn't fit any of the current
operations best practices? Once somebody gets the
word out to the world on how-to manage an ASM instance
from a production/operations perspective it may really
become popular.

Kevin

PS. If you are using "Standard Edition" for a RAC
implementation. ASM is required, not just suggested.

--- Arthur Johnson
<oracledba-ezmlmshield-x26601161.[Email address protected]
wrote:

> All, we are in the process of upgrading. Do to
> projections; we feel we may
> need RAC for performance reasons. Oracle is
> suggesting 10gR2 Standard
> Edition for the moment. They have informed us that
> ASM comes with this and
> needs to be used. Is anybody using it at this time
> and what problems if any
> have you encountered? Are there any limitations,
> minimum number of disks,
> max number of disks etc.? I have 3 books from
> oracle press that cannot even
> agree what to call it let alone how to
> install/operate it.
>
> Thanks for any insight.
>
> aj
>
>
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