Re: ZFS or UFS? Solaris 11 or better stay with Solaris 10?

From: <przemolicc_at_poczta.fm>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:22:08 +0200
Message-ID: <20120329122208.GB5950_at_host.pgf.com.pl>



On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 08:21:22PM +1000, De DBA wrote:
> Thanks, Przemyslaw
>
> When I said that the system won't be able to be upgraded, I was not thinking of technical complications. Rather, the importance of this 24/7 database and the jitter factor associated with an upgrade project this size will encourage the management to sit it out as long as possible. Live Upgrade is not going to help there.. ;)
>
> We need to strike a balance between two conflicting interests here:
>
> 1. Install the newest possible software, so that the system will have the longest possible period into the future of active vendor support

Until you find a bug (don't expect no bugs in a long periods). And the effort to install fixes is almost the same as in upgrade to newer release. In both cases you use LU ...

> 2. Deliver the most stable and robust solution possible so that the system will suffer as few hickups as possible.
>
> In this light ZFS sounded not like there was an overriding reason to use it, as we do not need any of the extra features that it offers. It is young and not necessarily stable, and therefore an unknown risk. In the meantime we have decided to give the older and better understood ASM a go (thanks Frits, for reminding me of it).
>
> You are right, Solaris 11 is also squeakingly new, just out of the shrinkwrap. But, if I understand correctly, its new features have had a good flogging in the wild through the OpenSolaris Project and Solaris 11 Express (which is now replaced by Sol11), have they not? So the risk is smaller than it seems at first glance, and it stands to reason that Oracle/Sun will put more effort towards fixing OS bugs in this new OS, rather than old, trusty Sol10. Our project will include a good volume testing phase, which should expose serious flaws (if any) and the entire project will not end until the second half of this year. Based on previous experience, I would expect that Oracle/Sun release an update before that.. ;)

Well, because of OpenSolaris/Solaris 11 Express I believe that it is better tested then any other OS which gets to the market. But I don't believe that Solaris 11 + Oracle 11 is also so well tested ... You don't want to use ZFS beacuse it is young. ZFS is much more mature then Solaris 11 ... ;-) (just kidding but ...) You insist on stability so Solaris 10 is IMHO better choice.

Regards
Przemyslaw Bak (przemol)

--
http://przemol.blogspot.com/


>
> Cheers,
> Tony
>
>
> On 29/03/12 17:41, przemolicc_at_poczta.fm wrote:
>> Hi Tony,
>>
>> - regarding UFS vs ZFS. The best thing is to do any (!) sort of tests. But if you really cannot do This is really difficult question since:
>> - zfs is brand new filesystem which will be improved more and more. UFS will not be improved.
>> - but does it matter for you if you will keep this system for years without change ?
>> - zfs has much more features which are unknown for UFS (and never will be)
>> - but do you really need them ?
>> - if you insist on using ZFS for Oracle read the following URL: http://www.solarisinternals.com/wiki/index.php/ZFS_for_Databases#Oracle_Considerations
>> - there are a lot of knowledge (in terms of people experience) in the internet about using UFS + Oracle
>> - if you can do any sort of tests (ZFS vs UFS):
>> - you can do it on both ZFS and UFS using:
>> - Orion (Oracle tool to test storage performance)
>> - of course don't relay on just one tool and its results
>> - Oracle 11 IO calibration (new feature)
>> and just compare the results
>> - a couple of URLs:
>> - https://blogs.oracle.com/roch/entry/zfs_and_directio
>>
>> - regarding Solaris 10 vs 11
>> - Solaris 11 has many new features. You can read WPs about What's new, etc. It's worth reading.
>> - but do you need them for typical OLTP (DSS ?) environment ?
>> - Solaris 10 is stable and predictable
>> - but does it matter for you ? Maybe you like new environments ? New features ?
>> - having Solaris 10 does not mean that you cannot upgrade to Solaris 11 in the future. Live Upgrade is a feature which helps you in this area.
>> - if you happen to have a bug in Solaris 11 Oracle support is not known to be the best on this planet regarding fixing new bugs ...
>>
>> - regarding SAN
>> - if you have typical hardware array I would not mirror at the filesystem level - don't complicate this.
>> - quite old but anyway ... http://storagemojo.com/2007/04/23/new-zfs-performance-numbers/
>>
>> Best regards
>> Przemyslaw Bak (przemol)
>> --
>> http://przemol.blogspot.com/
>>
>
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Received on Thu Mar 29 2012 - 07:22:08 CDT

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