Oracle-L: RE: Oracle and NAS storage systems

From: Orr, Steve <sorr_at_rightnow.com>
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 08:03:38 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.004AF18B.20020808080338@fatcity.com>

> If you have a mixture of MB/GB networks, make sure your pipe is actually > going through GB/GB connection.
A seasoned NetApp engineer set it up. Just to ensure a consistent GB pipe after we experienced problems, we did a "back to back" connection and still no help. NetApp is trying real hard to get their foot in the door and now the engineers are putting their heads together with a Linux guru to try to figure out the problem. Luckily we haven't bought anything otherwise we'd be putting their heads together Schwarznegger style. ;-)

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 10:59 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

There is something called Gigabit Ethernet Jumbo Frames which expands the frame size to 9K, assuming Linux supports this. Apparently, NFS + Gbit doesn't like small packets.

But it sounds like there might be other issues. If you have a mixture of MB/GB networks, make sure your pipe is actually going through GB/GB connection. You can check by a combination of "netstat -a", and "snoop".

>>> sorr_at_rightnow.com 08/07/02 11:13a.m. >>> "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: Orr, Steve
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