Re: Mounting Storage ... NFS?

From: Mladen Gogala <mgogala_at_yahoo.com>
Date: 08 Jun 2008 22:29:01 GMT
Message-ID: <484c5d2d$0$30640$834e42db@reader.greatnowhere.com>


On Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:19:11 -0700, Pat wrote:

> 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?

The company that I used to work for was using that, with more then satisfactory throughput. NetApp also has a gread snapshot backup which works fine with Oracle. At the time when I worked for them, they were having a DSS database with storage attached through NFS.

>
> Is my instinct to run screaming from any kind of NFS storage archaic, or
> is the netapp guy just spouting a load of hooey?

Yes, it is an archaic fear. Kevin Closson, along with K. Gopalakrishnan, the foremost authority on all thins RAC and storage has a great blog in which he explains many misconceptions about NFS:

http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/

Kevin was the principal architect of the Polyserve cluster file system, later bought by HP and now works for Oracle Corp. The posts that I would especially recommend are: http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/mount-options-for-oracle- over-nfs-its-all-about-the-port/
http://kevinclosson.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/manly-men-deploy-oracle-with- fibre-channel-only-oracle-over-nfs-is-weird/

Essentially, Oracle supports NFS. Of course, it cannot be just any Linux server, although I will admit trying precisely that, with some degree of success, the only supported way is using a commercial NAS, like NetApp. Please, look into the Note:359515.1 for details.

Having said that, you should still ask Network Appliance for references and check those references. As a general rule, you want your references as close as possible and, if possible, from the same industry as the company you are working for. Every salesman worth his salt has a list of references for all major types of Oracle installation. NetApp is in business for a long time and they expect questions like that.

-- 
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Received on Sun Jun 08 2008 - 17:29:01 CDT

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