Host Your Oracle Application on EOS
More than a year ago we announced that the NIH Computer Center was providing a Unix-based environment for your enterprise computing needs. Since then we have been hosting a variety of production and development applications on our Enterprise Open System (EOS). The EOS offers top-end client/ server hardware and software featuring a powerful Digital AlphaServer, an Oracle RDBMS, and complete web capabilities that can give access to data on different platforms. If you have been developing an Oracle application locally and must now plan for scaling up for production, you should consider using the EOS at the NIH Computer Center. The Computer Center has many years of experience providing production-level service for large enterprise applications. Its physical plant, security procedures, and networking infrastructure are already in place, as are the resources and staff expertise to handle all aspects of operating an enterprise application. Hardware The major Unix component of the EOS is the Digital AlphaServer 8400 5/440—configured with four 440 MHz processors, 2 GB of memory and readily expandable RAID and non-RAID disk storage. Other smaller Digital AlphaServers are also part of the EOS configuration. These servers can be used to host web servers and publicly-accessible applications while interfacing with the secure RDBMS on the AlphaServer 8400. RDBMS Both Oracle7 and Oracle8 are available on the AlphaServer 8400. You can have CIT staff set up Oracle instances for your database and provide you with the necessary concurrent user licenses for direct access to the database or provide unlimited web access to the database. You’ll have no worries about Oracle installation, maintenance, monitoring, or procurement. Monitoring CIT staff provide proactive monitoring of disk space, memory, and CPU usage on the EOS.We’ll suggest when it’s time to increase resources for your application. Connectivity We can provide wide bandwidth network connections for fast connectivity via FTP and Telnet, as well as to the Internet. Through ODBC you can access DB2 on the MVS platform or other Oracle databases. Through our SILK (Secure Internet Linked) web technology, we can even make MVS data accessible to your web application. CONNECT:Direct, a product for transferring data between different computer systems, is supported on EOS. Flexibility CIT can work with you to develop a special configuration of hardware and software for your needs. As your requirements change (perhaps your development system is going production), you can add or subtract additional services and options. You only pay for what you currently use and need. Security The Computer Center is physically secure with card-key access. Facilities in the Computer Center—including the EOS system—are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The computing environment has controlled humidity and temperature, as well as an uninterruptible power source. Data is backed up regularly, and the backup tapes are stored in a fireproof onsite vault and at a remote site. Use of the EOS is on a fee-for-service basis, with the costs charged to your CIT account. You will avoid procurement hassles of acquiring your own hardware or Oracle licenses. A detailed description of the services and charges for Oracle on the Digital AlphaServer 8400 can be accessed at http://silk.nih.gov/silk/citoracle. Special agreements can also be written to address your individual requirements. If you would like to discuss how your application could run in this environment, please contact the EOS team at (301) 496-2949.