More than one SDE instance on the same Oracle Instance

[VitorFortunato]

Hello,

I am GIS Consultant from INFLOR, ESRI Gold Partner and I have a question regarding ArcSDE Installation.

There's a difference between the installation options for SQL Server and Oracle. ArcSDE for SQL Server allow us to choose among SDE schema repository or DBO Schema repository, rather than Oracle, which allow just one installation type.

So, with SQL Server we can have any number of SDE instances on the same Server, for distinct customers. In the other hand, with Oracle, we have to create one Oracle Instance (on separated servers) for each of our customers and this restriction is very expensive to us.

Lastly, we'd like to know if there's a way to install more than one SDE instance on the same Oracle Instance, directing to different Oracle owners.

Best regards,

[VinceAngelo]

What is your purpose in loading this data?  Under most conditions, you can isolate data by user
in a single instance, then export by user to transfer to clients.  Sometimes you can isolate just
by naming scheme.

ArcSDE for Oracle has the capability for user-schema databases, which is as close to SQL-Server
as you'll get, but since they live in one database instance, there can be both unintended interaction
and unintended non-interaction (e.g., this will not substitute for using a standard set of usernames for
all logical datatbases).  You'd have to prototype procedures for using database table transfer tools
quite carefully, since there are a number of potential problems down this path.

- V

[SteveGarfield]

We have multiple Oracle and SDE instances running on the same server.  I create a directory for the new SDE instance and zip up the ora10gexe directory from an existing instance.  I copy and unzip that to the new instance directory and modify dbinit.sde to point to the correct Oracle instance and services.sde (making sure the port used is also in the services file).  I then create the service using the new home directory with the sdeservice exe.  In order to patch, I do have to have an SDE installed someplace (not necessarily on the same server).  I patch the installation then replace the ora10gexe on the production or test instance I want to upgrade and run sdesetup against that instance.  We've been doing it this way since 8.0.1.

[VinceAngelo]

Good point.  There isn't a "one Oracle per server host" requirement (I run 2-6 Oracle
instances on almost every box I control).

Still, it can't be argued that 2-6 Oracle instances have a comparable impact on system
resources as 2-6 databases do on the other ArcSDE-supported database products,
especially when the intent is to only exercise one or two customer datasets at a time,
but all of them must be available without delay. 

In some respects, six virtual server hosts, with one oracle instance each, might be an
efficient way to manage the equivalent resources (keeping in mind that this would be
more of a dev/test deployment and not a production one).

- V