Re: ASM or not to ASM
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:37:31 -0300
Message-ID: <CAJ2dSGRFAj_mipuD2RqdoEmHxoYNLEqm9_8ayHMkgcqDKRi2=A_at_mail.gmail.com>
well, I tend to agree with Tim... for me it simplifies administration a lot. there are some servers where we have /u01 through /u20 and tablespaces with dozens of datafiles, the databases we have on ASM have bigfile tablespaces, which essentially makes tablespace management easy. Plus, with autoextend you only need to worry about proper capacity planning. Furthermore, ASM requires very little "tuning" to work well and it's very easy to scale. It's also fairly simple to convert a database on ASM to RAC, should you ever want to do so.
On the other hand, it is true that ASM introduces another layer of possible bugs, but it's very unlikely you will hit a bug that is unresolved, and if you do Oracle will come up with a patch pretty soon, it's one of their flagship products (or at least part of).
hth
Alan.-
On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 1:55 PM, Tim Gorman <tim_at_evdbt.com> wrote:
> Robert,
>
> My $0.02...
>
> The main thing that is happening is that stuff which used to "belong" in
> the realm of "root" and the Sys Admins are being moved under the realm of
> DBA. So, there is a huge political aspect to the adoption of ASM that often
> overshadows the technical aspect, and this political "shift of power" from
> Sys Admin to DBA can be more of an obstruction than any other aspect of ASM
> adoption. Not sure what things are like in your shop, but that is not a
> trivial concern.
>
> It would be inaccurate to consider ASM to be "extra overhead". Along with
> that shift of "power" from SysAdmin to DBA comes the shift in responsibility
> from "root" to "oracle" accounts. If you are dealing with LUNs, volume
> managers, and file-systems, then from a techical perspective using ASM is
> the exact equivalent. You still have LUNs, but instead of a volume manager
> and a file-system you have ASM. Very very similar, but running under
> "oracle" instead of "root". So you can see that the big shift is human
> perception and responsibilities amongst the humans -- the machine is still
> doing the same things.
>
> ASM is simpler to configure optimally for Oracle than all of the flavors of
> file-system out there. Maybe you're already comfortable with that, maybe
> not? Some folks constantly like to fiddle with FS block-size, with
> direct-I/O, wish they could use asynch-I/O, etc. With ASM, its part of
> enchilada from the start.
>
> Maybe you're using VxFS or some other file-system with licensing issues;
> this is one area that Oracle actually saves you a few bucks.
>
> Looking downstream, there are advantages with platform migration/rehosting
> that come with ASM; not sure if that's slamming down the turnpike toward
> you.
>
> Another big selling point with me personally is the ease by which database
> files can be moved safely and without downtime from one SAN to another using
> ASM; much easier than most other storage options. Run ALTER DISKGROUP ...
> ADD DISK ..., ALTER DISKGROUP ... DROP DISK ..., then ALTER DISKGROUP ...
> REBALANCE, and done.
>
> It's tough to answer with detail without knowing present configuration, but
> that's my seat-of-the-pants reaction to your question. If what you've got
> has worked well so far, then stick with it, but if you reflect on things and
> realize that you're trying to make the square peg of Oracle fit into the
> round hole of file-systems, then ASM can make life easier and remove one
> more variable to worry about from the whole performance optimization
> environment.
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Tim
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* Storey, Robert (DCSO) [mailto:RStorey_at_DCSO.nashville.org]
> *Sent:* Monday, July 11, 2011 10:30 AM
> *To:* 'Oracle L'
> *Subject:* ASM or not to ASM
>
> Going through a 11gR2 new features class. First half day is all about ASM
> and installing grid infrastructure for a standalone structure, My question
> is why would I, on my single server with a single instance, using a SAN for
> my storage, bother with ASM? Why do all of this overhead just for a single
> instance? -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Mon Jul 11 2011 - 12:37:31 CDT