Re: Windows2003 Server Config for Oracle 10g

On Feb 9, 2:03 pm, "red_val..._at_yahoo.com" <red_val..._at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Feb 8, 5:11 pm, "Charles Hooper" <hooperc2..._at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I believe that I understand what you are trying to accomplish with the
> > RAID 10 arrangement. It has been a while since I read through Dell's
> > RAID controller documentation. I believe that all drives in the same
> > RAID array must be present on the same controller, and likely also on
> > the same channel of the controller.
>
> > If the 8 drives are in a single RAID 10 array, with a 64KB stripe
> > depth (64KB * 4 = stripe width), and the server is told to write out a
> > file that is slightly over 512KB in size, the file may be split among
> > the hard drives by the RAID controller similar to this:
> > DRIVE 1: 0KB - 63.99KB DRIVE5: 0KB - 63.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 2: 64KB - 127.99KB DRIVE6: 64KB - 127.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 3: 128KB - 191.99KB DRIVE7: 128KB - 191.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 4: 192KB - 255.99KB DRIVE8: 192KB - 255.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 1: 256KB - 319.99KB DRIVE5: 256KB - 319.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 2: 320KB - 383.99KB DRIVE6: 320KB - 383.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 3: 384KB - 447.99KB DRIVE7: 384KB - 447.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 4: 448KB - 511.99KB DRIVE8: 448KB - 511.99KB (Mirror)
> > DRIVE 1: 512KB - 512.99KB DRIVE5: 512KB - 512.99KB (Mirror)
>
> > All eight hard drives were were engaged twice in the write operation,
> > and drives 1 and 5 were engaged twice. There is a document on
> > Oracle's website that describes Oracle's SAME method and discusses
> > performance justifications (add this document to your must read list),
> > which concludes that the optimal stripe size is usually about 1MB - it
> > was not clear to me whether stripe size in this case refers to the
> > stipe depth (64KB in my example), or the stripe width (256KB in my
> > example). As best that I could tell, Dell's RAID arrays support a
> > maximum stripe depth of 64KB.
>
> > Now the question, can you break the eight drive RAID 10 array into
> > multiple drive letters? The question that I have is why? Doing so
> > may hurt performance, as the drive heads would need to travel greater
> > distances from the starting cylinder of one partition to the starting
> > cylinder of the next partition as data is written to and read from the
> > two partitions. Considering the size of the hard drives that you
> > selected, if you leave the drives with a single partition, you should
> > have minimal delay in track to track seek time.
>
> > Dell may have partitioned your RAID 1 array into a C and D drive. The
> > D drive may be ideal for the Flash Recovery Area, where archived redo
> > logs may be stored.
>
> > Charles Hooper
> > PC Support Specialist
> > K&M Machine-Fabricating, Inc.
>
> Charles,
>
> Thanks you ever so much for the terrific advice. This is precisely
> the response I was hoping for. Y'all saved the cost of 4 GB of
> unnecessary memory -- something rather rudimentary which I should have
> noticed in the first place.
>
> What I'm trying to do with the DOS -- oops, meant Windows -- logical
> drives is enable data to be optimally partitioned vis-a-vis the RAID
> array. Since database performance is intimately linked to placement
> of most heavily used data structures on disk (databases/tablespaces/
> tables) I'm trying to discern how -- and how best -- to slice and dice
> the bulk storage on an unfamiliar O/S with foreign DBMS. I'm really
> trying to avoid misconfiguring the host, as I've seen so many other
> places. The assumption always seems to be that the technology -- the
> RAID array, or filesystem, or some other nebulous black box -- will
> alleviate the SA's or DBA's of the effort to correctly arrange the
> available resources for optimal performance. It only seems to
> perpetuate ignorance.
>
> I'm all ears for any other good scoop -- websites, (paper) references,
> anecdotes, experiences.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Read this article through from start to finish - it starts out with one suggested file layout, and later suggests using SAME: http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:359617936136

Related links that discuss SAME:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/oow2000_same.pdf http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/availability/pdf/OOW2000_same_ppt.pdf

The 64 bit version of Windows 2003 Standard Edition supports up to 32GB of memory (extends the 2GB per process limit for 32 bit processes to 4GB, virtually unlimited per process memory for 64 bit processes). But, also keep in mind that the 64 bit version of Oracle typically requires more memory to accomplish the same task as the 32 bit version.

When configurating the cache on the RAID controller, assuming that it has _battery backed_ cache, set it to allocate 100% of the cache to buffer writes and 0% to buffer reads. Set up Windows to minimize the memory used for file caching, which will allow more of that memory to be used by Oracle. Other, similar tips, such as Large Page Support, can be found in the documentation links that I originally provided.

Charles Hooper
PC Support Specialist
K&M Machine-Fabricating, Inc. Received on Fri Feb 09 2007 - 14:38:34 CST