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RE: Oracle and NAS storage systems

From: david hill <david.hill_at_lechateau.ca>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 08:45:04 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.004ADAFC.20020807084504@fatcity.com>


Just to share my experience with Netapp's

I wasted about 2 months stress testing I think it was an F740, last year. Our Setup was a K class server with HP autoraid's attached, all raid 5, (I know, I know), they're attached fast wide I think, which give a theoretical max of like 20M/sec.
We connected the Netapp fiber, and would get performance no where close to my ancient raid. The Netapp guys kept trying to sell us the model higher up for an extra $50,000. After 2 months testing and dealing with Netapp support we finally gave up and returned it.

I think those things would be great for some sort of common storage solution but definitely not to put a production server on.

David Hill
DBA -----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 11:09 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Steve - How much do you have going across the wire to the Netapp? All database files? Or just data files? Myself, I tend to keep high-use files like redo logs on "real" disk. Then it seems to work pretty good. Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 6:14 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

"Nattering Nebobs of [Netapp] Negativity"

We've been testing a toaster we got on eval and surprise, surprise, we are having problems with performance of all things. The plan was to import a copy of some production data and load test with an in house "webstress" script but we haven't even gotten that far because the import is noticeably SLOOWWWERRR. We have a dedicated 1Gbit connection between the toaster and the server. As an experiment I mounted a toaster file system on another server with only a 100Mbit pipe and the import wasn't nearly so slow. Obviously there's a network performance issue and NetApp support has tried to help our sysadmin/network gurus but no resolution yet. With input from NetApp support I've been playing with the NFS mount settings for UDP vs TCP protocols, rsize/wsize, hardware flow control etc. ad nauseum to no avail. We have a fairly recent yet mainstream versions of Linux and Oracle 8i and 9i.

I got a white paper from the NetApp folks and it talks about the difficulty of NFS implementations on that weird Linux open source stuff. ;-)

Here's a precious quote,
"Currently, there is no professionally maintained knowledge base that tracks Linux NFS client issues."

And here's my favorite:
"If you find there are missing features or performance or reliability problems, let us encourage you to participate in the community development process."

Like, WOW!!! ...That speaks volumes doesn't it? Why have the added risk of NFS/NAS/network support when you can just get a proven SAN solution?

I'll let you know if NetApp support comes through on this.

Spiro

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 12:05 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Importance: High

I've been speaking to Veritas people about this lately.

They don't like NetApp because it is difficult to backup.

Veritas likes to have some hooks into the Filesytem, and apparently this isn't easy to do with WAFL for some reason. ( WAFL is the NetApp Filesystem )

Veritas doesn't sell hardware, so they don't have any $$ incentive for preferring one over the other.

They do on the other hand find SAN's very attractive. There's a lot of capabililty in a SAN for HA and management that is lacking in NetApp.

You might try talking to your local Veritas Sales and Support critters, they always like to get phone calls. :)

Jared

dgoulet_at_vicr.com
Sent by: root_at_fatcity.com
07/15/2002 07:43 AM
Please respond to ORACLE-L  

        To:     Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
        cc: 
        Subject:        Oracle and NAS storage systems


Folks,

    I've been asked to validate/invalidate a contention made by two storage
vendors.

    NetAppliance has stated that you can use a netapp filer with Oracle for
datafiles, although their configuration looks more like a DAS(direct attached
storage) configuration using 10baseT cables vs. SCSI cables. Of course their
real claim to fame here is Oracle's endorsement.

    EMC on the other hand has stated that using a NAS, in the traditional mode,
for Oracle datafiles is at best risky. And although their product can support
it, they do not recommend doing so for several of the reasons that I've held out
are pertinent.

    Therefore, is there anyone out their using a NAS to store datafiles? If so,
what does the configuration (server to NAS) look like?

Dick Goulet
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Author:
  INET: dgoulet_at_vicr.com
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Author: Orr, Steve
  INET: sorr_at_rightnow.com

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Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
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Author: david hill
  INET: david.hill_at_lechateau.ca
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