Re: Getting the best out of new server hardware: a disk setup for Oracle database

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:55:44 +0300, Heikki Siltala wrote:

> Hello all Oracle&server experts, what you think about the following
> setup for Oracle database?
>
> HP DL585, 16 GB RAM, 2 dual-core AMD processors, 64-bit Red Hat Linux 4,
> 64-bit Oracle database software. The disk setup for Oracle data consists
> of six PCI-X RAID cards with BBWC set to 0 percent read, 100 percent
> write. Each card has six 146 GB disks on RAID 1+0 setup and one hot
> spare. 128 kB stripe size is used. Each RAID 1+0 set (about 410 GB) is
> divided into two logical volumes: 40 GB and 370 GB and these volumes are
> seen as raw devices at the server.
>
> I'm planning to put all six 370 GB raw devices together into one
> diskgroup using ASM and ASMlib and let ASM stripe the database data
> (tables, indexes) over them (external redundancy). I'm planning to group
> the 40 GB volumes into two ASM failgroups (3 volumes each) and then let
> ASM do striping and mirroring over this diskgroup (normal redundancy).
> This smaller diskgroup would then store SYSTEM tablespace, control files
> and online redo logs. With this setup I get good protection for disk
> failures for all the data and additional protection against RAID card
> failures for SYSTEM tablespace, control files and online redo logs.
> There is a separate FC connected disk system that will be used for
> archived redo logs and backups. And separate mirrored disk pairs for OS
> and Oracle binaries.

Why do you want mirrored Oracle binaries? Even with the most aggressive patching strategy, it's highly unlikely that Oracle binaries will ever change at the rate with which backup software will be be unable to keep up. Second, what do you need ASM for? Do you need RAC? If you don't need RAC, what is the big deal, why do you want to install relatively new volume manager, which consumes quite a bit of resources and who has quite a few bugs. When CBO bug is encountered, there is always fall back on hints and CBO black magic, like using optimizer_index parameters or setting and locking statistics for certain indexes, but if your ASM fails, you are s***ed, because your database is gone. If you want a single server, you can always use very advanced software called "Ext3", which shouldn't be that hard to find on a Linux system.

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