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RE: Datafiles on SAN?

From: Orr, Steve <sorr_at_rightnow.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 13:08:23 -0600
Message-Id: <25929.337878@fatcity.com>


Last year a U-Haul drove up to the parking lot and some guy came in saying he had big computer stuff in there and we had to get it out. (I think he was a FedX employee.) It turns out it was a NetApp for demo so we rolled it into our little local data center. After lot's of phone calls and even a couple of visits from NetApp engineers we were never able to get decent performance. It seems that NFS/Linux was a little flaky. Maybe things have improved but once bitten...

Here's a post I made to this list back then:



"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-----
From: Matthew Zito [mailto:mzito_at_gridapp.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 1:19 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: Datafiles on SAN?

Well, you can run Oracle over Netapp NFS, which is far superior to EMC's Celerra (their NFS product), except in a few niche features. By the way, Netapp just released their FAS250 low-end filer - up to 1TB usable in 3U, pretty speedy, and damn cheap.

Rolling your own SAN is certainly doable, but Fibre Channel is fraught with implementation and interop problems. If you're set on doing it, get someone who's done SAN implementations before to oversee it, and get _written_ signoff from each vendor you're using that they'll guarantee interop. Then test the heck out of it.

Thanks,
Matt

--
Matthew Zito
GridApp Systems
Email: mzito_at_gridapp.com
Cell: 646-220-3551
Phone: 212-358-8211 x 359
http://www.gridapp.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com [mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com] On
> Behalf Of Orr, Steve
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 1:09 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: Datafiles on SAN?
>
>
> Has any "rolled their own" SAN? We've got a bunch of stuff on
> EMC but now we're looking to build our own fibre channel SAN
> and replace EMC NFS with clustered file systems. (Of course
> Oracle is not on NFS.)
>
> Disk may be cheap but vendor SAN boxes are not.
>
>
> Steve Orr
> Bozeman, MT
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 11:24 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
>
> Hundreds, nay, thousands put their datafiles on SAN. All
> love it. All would trade their children for more SAN
> storage. None have ever had a problem. :)
>
> Seriously, though, some huge percentage of storage being
> configured today is SAN and a big chunk of that is database
> storage. It by and large works fine, in that its just as
> good as SCSI-attached, only generally faster and you can put
> the array farther away from the host :) The gotchas tend to
> come up in more complex environments with things like
> combining multiple san vendors, different operating systems,
> remote replication, snapshots, etc. etc. But just hooking up
> hosts to fibre channel storage and sending commands tends to
> go off flawlessly.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt
>
> --
> Matthew Zito
> GridApp Systems
> Email: mzito_at_gridapp.com
> Cell: 646-220-3551
> Phone: 212-358-8211 x 359
> http://www.gridapp.com
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com [mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com]
> On Behalf
> > Of Tim Levatich
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 11:29 AM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > Subject: Datafiles on SAN?
> >
> >
> > Is anyone putting datafiles on SAN storage?
> > Success? Horror? Tell me a story.
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > Tim Levatich, Database Administrator
> > Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods
> Road, Ithaca,
> > New York 14850
> > TPL10_at_cornell.edu phone 607-254-2113 fax 607-254-2415
> > http://birds.cornell.edu http://birdsource.cornell.edu
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > --
> > Author: Tim Levatich
> > INET: tpl10_at_cornell.edu
> >
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> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> --
> Author: Matthew Zito
> INET: mzito_at_gridapp.com
>
> Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services
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> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> --
> Author: Orr, Steve
> INET: sorr_at_rightnow.com
>
> Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com
> San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
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-- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Matthew Zito INET: mzito_at_gridapp.com Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
Received on Tue Jul 15 2003 - 14:08:23 CDT

Original text of this message

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