Oracle Storage Research
I have been heavily researching Oracle storage best practices since starting my new Oracle RAC project. My new setup will specifically be for replacing a data warehouse that is currently 4.8T. The new data warehouse will start out significantly smaller. An entirely new ETL process will be deployed an then the historical data will be move over to it.
The new setup will be a (2) node RAC installation running Oracle 11G. The storage for this project will be a SAN and utilizing Oracle’s ASM architecture. Specifically we will be running 3Par’s InServ F400. We will be starting out with (40) 450GB 15K drives. We will be running dual 4 GBIT/s fiber channel adapters. Our SAN switches will be running 2 GBIT/s ports with an upgrade path to use 4 GBIT/s switch later.
I have been looking for other blogs and white papers describing either best practices or simply documenting real world examples using similar hardware. One blog I came across appears to be an excellent resource for all things I/O and Oracle. Check out Oracle Storage Guy’s blog. I first ran across his blog will googleing for ASM and 3Par. I ran into this post, which I tend to agree with to an extent (excuse the pun). The only reason I agree though is because DBA’s tend to be old school (me included). We can have a tough time with change if we think it will affect the safty of our data. As an simple example, it took me a while to stop using DECODE and start using CASE. I loved DECODE, but now I love CASE even more.
I think 3Par’s thin provisioning is a cool feature and will be appreciated by everyone involved. I will pre-extend my tablespaces to what I will need based on my growth patters and projections. The problem is that I still auto-extend my tablespaces so that if I have unexpected data growth I can handle it. The issue is I always make sure my OS available space is more than enough to handle the growth of a tablespace that auto-extends (within reason). 3Par’s thin provisioning will allow me to not waste that space. Space that I horde for safety reasons only.
While our data warehouse will be the first major player using the new 3Par SAN it will not be the only application using it. I can see where thin provisioning will be a great asset when we add VMWare and Exchange data into the mix.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
The Oracle VM Storage Connect framework provides a storage discovery and provisioning Application Programming Interface (API) that is intended to greatly enhance the ease with which storage can be managed and provisioned in an Oracle VM environment.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Leading vendors who support and have already joined the Oracle VM Storage Connect Program include AMD, Brocade, Chelsio Communications, Compellent, EMC, Emulex, FalconStor, Fujitsu, Hitachi Data Systems, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, LSI, Mellanox Technologies, NEC, NetApp, Pillar Data Systems, QLogic, Sun Microsystems, Symantec and Voltaire.
December 25th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I don’t see a link to email you from your site. Doing a google search, your site’s address http://www.squaredba.com/wp-content/themes/adspress/images/ popped up in my search results and is showing your directory. Please add a blank index.html into this directory for your own security. Peace.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Thanks I will fix that right now.
December 30th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
The Oracle VM Storage Connect framework does not require storage vendors to change any of their hardware, array software or client software, thus allowing partners to improve time to market.
December 30th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
In development over the past year, the Oracle VM Storage Connect framework will enable Oracle VM Manager to directly leverage the resources and functionality of existing storage systems in the Oracle VM environment, supporting native storage services such as Logical Unit Number (LUN) creation, deletion, expansion, and snapshot.