Re: Block Corruptions on Oracle and UNIX

g3000 wrote:
> Good day,
> Just read an article on Oracle Metalink ( DOC ID: 77587.1 ) that
> explained some issues with Oracle and UNIX device drivers and
> filesystems that cause Oracle block corruptions.
>
> Im seeking real world do's and dont's of running Oracle on the various
> flavors of UNIX and or Linux. What should I do to be PROACTIVE in these
> situations?
>
> I would also like to get comments from those who dont see this is a
> problem ( please be experienced not a new jack ).
>
> Any hardware monitering tools that have helped?
> Links to helpful links on this subject. I dont mind reading more.
>
> Thanks for your time it is appreciated.

Having administered Oracle on HP-UX, RiscOS, Solaris and AIX I rarely found block corruption issues, and do not find them currently with 9.2.0.6 on Solaris 10. My one source of consternation was with the RiscOS box, however that was due to incompetent wiring of the isolated power circuit causing exceptional grief at both the operating system and database levels. Surely such occurrences are possible, however I believe them to be rare unless you have driver incompatabilities or faulty hardware. Yes, there have been known issues with some vendors storage arrays and certain 'flavors' of UNIX; not having worked with EMC or Veritas subsystems I really cannot comment (I'm certain Daniel can chime in with respect to these vendors).

In my opinion you should keep such things in the back of your mind, as block corruption could rear its ugly head when you least expect it, however after over 17 years of administering Oracle on Unix, from Oracle 6 to 9.2.0.6 (and, yes, I'm pushing to migrate to 10.2) I have rarely experienced such corruption in either a production or development/test database.

My two cents.

David Fitzjarrell Received on Wed Nov 02 2005 - 16:25:28 CST