Oracle RAC NFS on 7Mode -> cDOT

[gmilazzoitag]

Hi everybody,

one million dollar questions 😉 aka transition to cDot could be really a nightmare!

The questions come not only from best practice and TR I’ve read (or I could read…) but your ideas about best ways to bring in cDot what now is deeply optimized in 7Mode.

AS is - 7 Mode

A lot of NFS volumes where to separate data/log/temp of each Oracle instance. Each volume is exported for access only to the hosts that manage binaries and db.

In the production environment all instances are RAC while in development test most of them are RAC but some are also composed just by one server.

90% of hosts are VMware VM, some are phyical for RAC instances composed by a phys-virtual pair of hosts.

Volumes are hosted on aggregates composed by SAS or FC discs depending on type and importance of workload. In test/dev there are mostly SATA vols but non only.

Of course, all the instances are managed and replicated with the concurrent usage of Snapcreator and its integration with DFM Protection Manager that it’s then integrated with Snapmirror

To be – cDOT (8.3.1) <- we hope to be able to use SVM DR features somewhere…

Each instance in a its own SVM? This could be a nightmare to manage ipspaces, dedicated lifs, flexvol that once assigned are locked to that SVM and so on….

Just one SVM for all NFS RAC? Maybe creating differente FlexVols with qtree for data/log/temp? Or on different aggregates?

One or more SVM, few, just to balance the workloads between controllers?

Is there an advantage offered by the juction paths that should be created?

Every idea is accepted also is recently has been demonstrated that brainstorming is useless J

Regards,

[JH]

As you stated you have a few choices, we used one SVM based on the business unit accessing the data. The reason why most people are using different SVMs is to limit access to different business units. We used different VLANS for each SVM to make sure the data is secure. We put the log and temp in a different volumes so we could control the data in the snapshots. If temp and logs are in the same volume the snapshot usage will be very high, which impacts performance. We had each DB in it's own volume. I beleive with RAC you have evertyhing you need to restore a DB so there shouldn't be any need to snapshot the temp/log volume.

[gmilazzoitag]

I agree with you. The problem is that for this customer we will have to plan with a big accuracy the SVM needed because we're experiencing a lot of issues with DR for test purposes.

We've just started to experiment SVM DR in 8.3.1RC1 but the usage it offer does not permit to replicate the behaviour that vfiler create -d offered us...when we had the choice to create a vfiler starting from a cloned flexvol at destination site maintaining up & running the source that continued to replicate the data.

Regards

[ekashpureff]

Gmilazzoitag -

It doesn't have to be a nightmare, and it's not a million dollars to answer these questions you have !

We can answer many of them for just a few NetApp training credits.

You may want to consider our 'Implementing Oracle on NetApp Storage Systems' class.

See the course description here: http://www.fastlaneus.com/course/netapp-oronss

There's also some web based training available on learningcenter.netapp.com, including 'Architecting Oracle on NetApp Storage'.

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, IT Learning Solutions http://sg.itls.asia/netapp
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

[gmilazzoitag]

Dear Eugene,
I know fastlane offer, I know courses, I've reached too.
But, what we say here in Italy "from say to doing there's a sea between".
As experienced netapp ps I prefer to exchange opinions with colleagues here and to read and study the good tr that netapp offers.
And last, let me say, you're free to post but I don't like this form of advertising here.
Regards

[ekashpureff]

Gmillazzoitag -

I'm sorry you felt it was 'advertising' for FastLane, it wasn't meant to be.

I promote NetApp training from all NetApp U vendors.

You may notice I teach for several of them worldwide.

A point I didn't make in my previous response was that the Oracle on NetApp course has been re-written recently for ONTAP Cluster-Mode.

It includes extensive labs using Cluster Mode simulators.

There's no marketing to the Web Based Training at learningcenter.netapp.com I mentioned.

These courses are mostly free of charge these days to customers and partners.

In most transition cases my advice is to do in Cluster Mode as you did with your 7-Mode implementation.

Create the SVM with the same provisioning as you had in 7-Mode.

The disadvantage of this strategy is that you may not be taking advantage of the best provisioning practices already in your current 7-Mode environ.

The questions on provisioning you had in your original post aren't quick and easy ones to answer.

We take an entire module in our Oracle on NetApp course to discuss provisioning strategies.

These strategies vary by size, performance, and count of how many databases need to be provisioned.

I'm a big fan of NetApp Technical Reports myself.

There's 541 of them I found just now in a search of the NetApp library - http://www.netapp.com/us/library/

I noted that you're using SnapCreator framework.

There's some excellent information that would apply to SC as well as SnapProtect in a new TR, TR-4432 'Best Practices for SnapProtect Backup for Oracle RAC Solution'.

You may also want to look at some of the performance TRs.

They usualy have detailed information on the best practice configurations used to run the performance tests.

Again, my apologies if you thought the previous response was marketing.

I take the time to post here to be helpful not only to the original poster, but others who read these threads on the NetApp community.

I hope this response has been more helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, IT Learning Solutions http://sg.itls.asia/netapp
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)