RE: server sizing [NT: need XEON?]

Lerone,

Based on an earlier mail, the following resources may be helpful:

> I have been tasked with finding an NT server solution to handle 1600
> concurrent users.
> (Please no laughing). Anybody got a clue/recommendations if there's any NT
> solution that might handle this? (please non of the usual switch to Unix
> comments)

Have a look on ftp.oracle.com in /pub/www/otn/sizer for a tool - at 18-Apr-2001 doesn't seem to exist.
This seems to now be located at http://partner.oracle.com/public/3size.htm but the site doesn't want to work for my browser.

http://www.compaq.com/solutions/enterprise/database-oracle-sizer-download.ht ml

http://www.dell.com/us/en/biz/topics/products_alls_pedge_wp-sizer.htm as of 19-Dec-2000 I found that you need to see the following instead http://support.dell.com/us/en/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=R20794 - a word doc to download

http://www2.clearlake.ibm.com/erp/oracle/sizings/sizer.html

However, the IBM link seems to be very geared towards Oracle Applications users and from just using it, the Compaq tool is 3 years out of date.

As for Very Large Memory (VLM) support under NT / Windows 2000 I have a copy of a document posted to this list (paper called "Oracle8i on Windows NT/2000: Architecture, Scalability, and Tuning April, 2000" that states a Xeon is required for VLM support (in addition to requiring NT Enterprise Edition under v4). However, 4GB RAM Tuning (4GT)is available using just Enterprise Edition and it will provide 3GB of memory to applications as opposed to 2GB - the MS Web site states that VLM and 4GT are incompatible.

The Oracle documentation (817 Admin guide for Windows Ch 10) states that ESMA (VLM under NT 4) "is only available on Intel Pentium II and Pentium III Xeon 32-bit processors" and the Intel site (http://support.intel.com/support/performancetools/pse36/tti/softrequ.htm) seems to confirm that a Xeon is required.

Where does this leave you -
Buying a new Enterprise server will have Xeon processors - how many - NT 4 will support at least 4 (and we use 4) but some manufacturers offer NT servers with 8 & up to 32 on Win 2000 (eg Compaq at http://www.compaq.com/products/servers/platforms/) but how well that scales I don't know. You also have to take into account Oracle's license costs with multi processors.

As for drives and RAID, you will probably find that the manufacturer you buy the server from will have their own branded RAID alternatives. Also whether you want your disks internal or external or a combination) will influence how many disks you can have and what sort of RAID. We use Dell servers and our main production server is a quad-processor with 3 internal disks (OS & Oracle) on a SCSI RAID card whilst we have 20 external disks (split into mirror pairs, hot spares and a couple of non RAID drives) that are controlled by 2 Fibre channel controllers. Then again we have a disaster recovery server with 10 disks all internal, on 2 RAID controllers, split into 5 mirror pairs. Budgetary constraints may influence what you will have to live with.

You can of course also go with 3rd party RAID solutions (eg EMC) with NT just as you can with Unix.

Hope this helps.
Regards,
Bruce

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, 18 April 2001 9:56

Lerone,

I stumbled across a skimpy, but perhaps interesting, "Capacity Planning" chapter in:

   _Oracle Forms Server Release 6i: Deploying Forms Applications     to the Web with Oracle Forms Server for Windows and Unix_

http://docs.oracle.com/a84664/SHIPHOME/DOC/product_0/index.htm -
http://docs.oracle.com/a84664/SHIPHOME/DOC/product_0/a73071.pdf

(starting at http://docs.oracle.com, click:   database | tools| MS Win NT | Oracle(r) Tools Version CD Pack v8...)

They contrast scability for small and medium (no large) dbs on Intel vs. Sun (2 processors only!), and talk of things on the order of 500 NT users for "small" dbs, 300 NT users (max) for "medium" dbs.

Of course since the document is about a year old, they are talking about a PII 2 processor Intel 200Mhz server as "small" and a PII 2 processor 400Mhz server as "medium"!

Also, in the Oracle8i (Enterprise?) Install docs, they discuss support for RAM>4GB on NT (and Win2000) but this requires XEON, and special drivers. Unles I'm confusing that toic with some of the other mass of Oracle/NT stuff I've read lately, you can only run one Oracle instance with the oversized (>4gb) NT memory configuration on XEON. Sorry I'm not well enough versed in the nuances of RAID for large servers to say much (except get about the most high-end controllers you can afford). If you can get ahold of him, or can wait until he isn't so busy, Paul Drake of this list is the resident RAID/hardware expert.

Other resources (sorry if you've already seen them):

-
http://www.geocities.com/tbcox23/generic_oracle_nt_config.pdf

-
http://www.geocities.com/tbcox23

-
http://www.ultratech-llc.com/Personal/Files/

-
http://www.ultratech-llc.com/Personal/Files/?File=RAID.TXT

-
http://www.ultratech-llc.com/Personal/Files/?File=ServerSpecs.TXT

-
http://www.ultratech-llc.com/KB/?File=Hardware.TXT

regards,
ep

On 17 Apr 2001, at 12:11, Streeter, Lerone A LBX wrote:

Date sent: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:11:22 -0800 ....

> why NT? familiarity and comfort. we've asked and everyone doted on
> oracle's ability to run on NT just as well as *nix and being that we have
0
> *nix boxes mgmt of course wanted NT. we looked for support in having
oracle
> on *nix but found none and accepted the offering.

....

>>...right now we have about 100 users and a 20G DB which *will*
>> increase to probably 300 users and 40G to 50G DB; on average we're
>> looking at about thirty thousand transactions over an 11 hour
>> period; again that'll probably increase to 70,000 to 80,000
>> transactions over an 11 hour period. reads/writes/queries/indexes,
>> their size and speed, and other such processing metrics, were
>> never a concern.  

....

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