Re: Oracle configuration on Enterprise E450

In comp.unix.solaris Peter Sylvester <peters_at_mitre.org> wrote:
> I understand the issue with striping being bad for logs, but I would
> expect that you would want some form of mirroring for them.
> Then the question would be whether to use Oracle's mirroring or Sun's
> DiskSuite. I'd be interested in the pros/cons on this...

Personally, I (as the admin) prefer OS mirroring.

As the admin, it's difficult for me to keep track of exactly where the DBA has put files. I worked on a machine that lost a non-mirrored disk. Finally the DBA helped us figure out that it was just a disk with mirrored redo logs, so he could disable them, we replaced the disk, and then he reenabled them.

I would rather have seen the volume on the disk was redundant, and scheduled the disk to be replaced. We would have passed that along to the box users (including the DBA), but in a pinch it could have been done by me immediately. I wouldn't have had to wait for a DBA to tell me what's on the disk and decide our plan after that.

So I think if you're going to have redundant data, make it *all* redundant, and do it at the OS level. I don't think it's as easy if you are using two separate methods for redundancy.

I'm sure there are some arguments against this for performance, and they may make sense, especially for smaller installations. As the systems get bigger, the layout and management issues become larger.

-- 
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham_at_taos.com
Unix System Administrator                    Taos - The SysAdmin Company
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
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