Re: Mounting Storage ... NFS?

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:16:44 -0700
Message-ID: <1212963395.307251@bubbleator.drizzle.com>


Pat wrote:
> So ... we're getting a new SAN in one of our data centers (a netapp
> 3040). If you're not familiar with netapps, one of their big things is
> that you don't have to buy another head unit to expose storage as NFS
> (as opposed to fiber channel). This is one of those features which
> struck me as only moderately interesting from a database perspective,
> since I just kind of assumed we'd link everything up via fiber channel
> anyway.
>
> That is until we had the netapp rep on the phone and he blithely
> suggested we mount the primary storage on our database servers as NFS.
>
> After I finished coughing up a lung (since my instinct is never, ever,
> ever put operation storage on NFS for latency and stability reasons),
> he went on to assure us that this is an Oracle recommended
> configuration and, in fact, the Oracle On Demand grid uses precisely
> this approach.
>
> Is anybody actually doing this? I'm assuming with fast ethernet
> (10GBS) and low collision rates, I could get good throughput
> relatively to a 4GBS fiber channel card, but there's be inevitable
> latency issues added wouldn't there?
>
> Is my instinct to run screaming from any kind of NFS storage archaic,
> or is the netapp guy just spouting a load of hooey?

You really need to go out and have a scotch ... on the rocks ... toss it back ... because your instincts are terrible.

Oracle, internally, uses NFS. I have used NFS to set up some very substantial systems, and it is as stable and almost as fast as Fibre.

NFS today is not the NFS of yesterday any more than Oracle 10gR2 is Oracle 7.0.12.

The NetApp guy was right on the money. You owe him a drink.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
Oracle Ace Director & Instructor
University of Washington
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org
Received on Sun Jun 08 2008 - 17:16:44 CDT

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