Was: Oracle in an AIX LPAR Hijacking thread to a licensing discussion

Does anybody know of a document or discussion about Oracle licensing and AIX micro-partitioning? (I am already aware of the MOS document about licensing and partitioning policy).

Our Oracle sales folk are telling us that within a single machine, we can have multiple micro-partitions, add up their hard-capped values and then round up to get the number of cores needed for licensing.

Example:

(all hard capped)

micro-partition #1 = 1.2 CPUs
micro-partition #2 = 2.3 CPUs
micro-partition #3 = 1.1 CPUs

total = 4.6 CPU
Then round up to 5 CPU for licensing??????

Is this the correct process?

Daniel Hubler
Aurora Healthcare
IT Infrastructure
daniel.hubler_at_aurora.org

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carol Dacko Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2015 10:47 AM To: john40855_at_gmail.com
Cc: rjoralist3_at_society.servebeer.com; oracle-l_at_freelists.org Subject: Re: Oracle in an AIX LPAR

Hi John,
I believe the following paper gives you a better understanding on how IBM has implement and recorded CPU utilization with AIX: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/resources/pwrsysperf_SMT4OnP7.pdf<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www-2D03.ibm.com_systems_resources_pwrsysperf-5FSMT4OnP7.pdf&d=AwMFaQ&c=FdThBvJHxSAZ8-R9NIS_sODV3ezb9Po6yjZ5Lt_XtNs&r=YSSKXQ0_Lrv3cQCUPgcr3rnHB3G_K3yVFuEU4i6dvBI&m=8qg--i6trKpmJiOXXdf4NQvFlMXZTEJIALab-J5GfyM&s=kIgX9U8_frhklKJWJyJ8280wyP0-HEHcWw_T4UJ2YT8&e=>

And a more graphical representation on pages 15-32 in this PPT:

http://gibsonnet.net/AIX/ibm/ATS_Tech_Talk_Optimizing_POWER7_and_AIX_Update_Dec_2012.pdf<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__gibsonnet.net_AIX_ibm_ATS-5FTech-5FTalk-5FOptimizing-5FPOWER7-5Fand-5FAIX-5FUpdate-5FDec-5F2012.pdf&d=AwMFaQ&c=FdThBvJHxSAZ8-R9NIS_sODV3ezb9Po6yjZ5Lt_XtNs&r=YSSKXQ0_Lrv3cQCUPgcr3rnHB3G_K3yVFuEU4i6dvBI&m=8qg--i6trKpmJiOXXdf4NQvFlMXZTEJIALab-J5GfyM&s=-1tuyNuIwgU9QtoxVRDxY5QVv_pCrJSJnCdsJgq2ed0&e=>

HTH! Carol Dacko
Accenture Enkitec Group

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 11:28 AM, John Smith <john40855_at_gmail.com<mailto:john40855_at_gmail.com>> wrote: Talking to our system guys, my understanding is that this LPAR has 4 CPU's dedicated, with 2 more allowed, so it is capped at 6. NMON shows 24 CPU's available. As I watch nmon, we see that the first thread on each CPU is typically running at 50% usage or better. I see cpu 9 and 3 getting some usage (second thread on cpu's 3 and 4), but other than that only the first thread on each CPU is being used. I assume the first thread is the primary. SMT 4 is being used. The processes getting CPU are all oracle<SID> (LOCAL=NO), so sqlnet connections.

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:16 AM, Rich Jesse <rjoralist3_at_society.servebeer.com<mailto:rjoralist3_at_society.servebeer.com>> wrote: Hey John,

> This is power7 in a dedicated LPAR.

An LPAR is IBM's term for a VM. So, is there just one LPAR on your POWER7? I'd think there'd also be at least 2 more for VIOs, but that's stretching my knowledge limits...

SMT also comes into play here. By default, the LPAR should be using SMT4, which means that 1 virtual CPU core will be shown as 4 logical CPUs. You should be able to see this in the "p" screen of nmon.

You mentioned "1 thread per CPU". It sounds like you might be thinking of Oracle on Windows? If so, Oracle doesn't run the same in Unix/Linux. The background processes will be exposed as individual processes in AIX instead of Windows threads in a single process.

Which Oracle process shows at 50% (e.g. using the "u" screen in nmon)? That could give a big clue...

Let us know!

Rich

> On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Stefan Koehler <contact_at_soocs.de<mailto:contact_at_soocs.de>> wrote:
>
>> >> we see that Oracle appears to be using only 1 thread per CPU almost all
>> the time.
>> You mean one vCPU = one thread, right? The CPU usage can also be shown as
>> 50%, but it is not 50% in reality - it depends on the used entitlement per
>> vCPU.

[snip]

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