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© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2012

IBM Storwize V7000 Real-time Compression volumes with

Oracle 11g R2 databases

Demonstrating IBM Storwize V7000 advanced storage efficiency for Oracle databases

Mayur Shetty IBM Systems and Technology Group ISV Enablement

July 2012

IBM Storwize V7000 Real-time Compressed volumes with Oracle 11g R2 databases

Table of contents 1 Abstract.................................................................................................................................. 1

2 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 2.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 1 2.2 Assumptions ...................................................................................................................................... 1 2.3 Intended audience ............................................................................................................................. 1

3 IBM Storwize V7000 technology stack ................................................................................. 2 3.1 IBM Storwize V7000 overview ........................................................................................................... 2 3.1.1 IBM Storwize V7000 functionalities ................................................................................................ 2 3.1.2 IBM Storwize V7000 terminology.................................................................................................... 4

4 IBM Storwize V7000 and Real-time Compression ............................................................... 5 4.1 Real-time Compression: An overview................................................................................................ 5 4.2 Real-time Compression data write flow ............................................................................................. 5 4.3 Real-time Compression data read flow ............................................................................................. 5 4.3 Real-time Compression of existing data............................................................................................ 5

5 IBM Storwize V7000 Configuration....................................................................................... 6 5.1 SAN configuration planning ............................................................................................................... 6 5.2 MDisk configuration ........................................................................................................................... 6 5.3 Volume configuration ......................................................................................................................... 6

6 Real-time Compression volumes for Oracle databases ..................................................... 6 6.1 Real-time Compressed volumes with file system for Oracle data files.............................................. 6 6.1.1 Real-time Compressed volume creation ........................................................................................ 6 6.1.2 Assigning Real-time Compressed volumes to the host .................................................................. 9 6.1.3 Volume group creation using Real-time Compressed volumes ................................................... 11 6.1.4 File system creation using Real-time Compressed volumes........................................................ 12 6.1.5 Swingbench Order Entry schema creation ................................................................................... 14 6.2 Real-time Compressed volumes with Oracle ASM for the Oracle data files ................................... 16 6.2.1 Oracle ASM disk group creation ................................................................................................... 16 6.2.2 Swingbench Order Entry schema creation ................................................................................... 16

7 Summary.............................................................................................................................. 19

8 Resources............................................................................................................................ 20

9 Trademarks and special notices ........................................................................................ 21

IBM Storwize V7000 Real-time Compressed volumes with Oracle 11g R2 databases 1

1 Abstract

This paper demonstrates how the Real-time Compression feature of the IBM Storwize V7000 can be used to reduce the storage capacity required for running an Oracle 11g database. The paper also explains the use of Real-time Compressed volumes with file systems as well as Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) disk groups for storing the Oracle data files, and the capacity saving it provides.

2 Introduction This section provides an overview on the various topics explained in this paper, the assumptions made, and the intended audience that are likely to benefit from this paper.

2.1 Overview

This paper demonstrates the capacity savings that you can get by deploying Real-time Compressed volumes from an IBM® Storwize® V7000 disk system on a host running an Oracle database. The volumes might be using either the internal drives in the IBM Storwize V7000 system, or an external storage system that is virtualized by IBM Storwize V7000.

The load generator used to arrive at the configuration guidelines is the Swingbench Order Entry tool. Order Entry is based on the oe schema that ships with Oracle11g. It has been modified so that Spatial, Intermedia schemas do not need to be installed. It can be run continuously (that is until you run out of space). It introduces heavy contention on a small number of tables and is designed to stress interconnects and memory. It is installed using the oewizard located in the bin directory. Both, a pure JDBC and PL/SQL (lower network overhead) variant exist of the benchmark.

2.2 Assumptions

The team assumes that the best practices that are documented in Real-time Compression in SAN Volume Controller and the Storwize V7000 at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/pdfs/redp4859.pdf holds good for Oracle databases too.

Another assumption is that the load generation tools, such as ORION, are appropriate for determining the storage performance for Oracle I/O workloads. A detailed description of the tool is provided in a later section. But briefly, ORION generates I/O using the same I/O software stack used by the Oracle server software without having to install the server software. By using ORION, it is possible to avoid addressing the subject of Oracle database server tuning, which is beyond the scope of this paper.

2.3 Intended audience

The intended audience of this paper is any technical lead, system administrator, storage administrator, or an Oracle database administrator (DBA) who is planning on deploying the IBM Storwize V7000 system for running an Oracle database. This paper provides a starting point for Real-time Compression configuration, and provides an idea on how Real-time Compression can save capacity for an Oracle database.


3 IBM Storwize V7000 technology stack This section includes concepts related to the IBM Storwize V7000 technology.

3.1 IBM Storwize V7000 overview

The IBM Storwize V7000 solution provides a modular storage system that includes the capability to virtualize external storage area network (SAN) attached storage and its own internal storage. IBM Storwize V7000 provides a number of preset configuration options which are aimed at simplifying the implementation process. It also provides an active-active solution, and is a clustered, scalable, midrange storage, and an external virtualization device.

Included with IBM Storwize V7000 is a simple and easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) that allows storage to be deployed quickly and efficiently. The GUI runs on the IBM Storwize V7000 system so that there is no need for a separate console. The IBM Storwize V7000 solution consists of a control enclosure (which is a hardware unit that includes the chassis, node canisters, drives, and energy sources that include batteries) and an expansion enclosure (which is a hardware unit that includes expansion canisters, drives, and energy sources that do not include batteries). Within each enclosure are two canisters which are hardware units that includes the node hardware, fabric and service interfaces, and serial-attached SCSI (SAS) expansion ports, which determine the role of the enclosure

3.1.1 IBM Storwize V7000 functionalities

The following functionalities are available with the IBM Storwize V7000 storage system:

• Thin provisioning: With thin provisioning, applications can grow dynamically, but consume only the space that they are actually using. Without thin provisioning, preallocated space is reserved irrespective of whether the application uses it or not.

• Volume Mirroring: Volume Mirroring provides a single volume image to the attached host systems while maintaining pointers to two copies of data in separate storage pools. Copies can be on completely separate disk storage systems that are being virtualized.

• IBM Tivoli® Storage FlashCopy® Manager: FlashCopy creates instant application copies that can be used for backup or application testing. FlashCopy makes better use of the space with incremental copy, where only changed blocks are copied.

• Metro Mirror: Metro Mirror provides synchronous remote mirroring function up to approximately 300 km between sites. As the host I/O completes only after the data is cached at both locations, performance requirements might limit the practical distance. Metro Mirror is designed to provide fully-synchronized copies at both the sites with zero data loss after the initial copy is completed.

• Global Mirror: Global Mirror provides long distance asynchronous remote mirroring function up to approximately 8,000 km between sites. With Global Mirror, the host I/O completes locally, and the changed data is sent to the remote site later. This is designed to maintain a consistent, recoverable copy of the data at the remote site which lags behind the local site.

• Data migration: A data migration wizard can be used to import the external storage system into the IBM Storwize V7000 system.


• IBM System Storage® Easy Tier®: Provides a mechanism to seamlessly migrate hot spots to a

higher performing storage pool within the IBM Storwize V7000 solution. This can be to internal drives within IBM Storwize V7000 or to external storage systems that are virtualized by IBM Storwize V7000.

Figure 1: IBM Storwize V7000 virtualizing external and internal storage


3.1.2 IBM Storwize V7000 terminology

Table 1 lists the Storwize V7000 terminology used in the paper. For an entire list of the Storwize V7000 terminology, refer to the IBM Redbooks® IBM Storwize V7000 Introduction and Implementation Guide at ibm.com/redbooks/redpieces/abstracts/sg247938.html?Open

IBM Storwize V7000 term Definition

Control enclosure A hardware unit that includes the chassis, node canisters, drives, and energy sources that include batteries.

Expansion enclosure A hardware unit that includes expansion canisters, drives, and energy sources that do not include batteries.

Node canister A hardware unit that includes the node hardware, fabric and service interfaces, and serial-attached SCSI (SAS) expansion ports.

Host mapping The process of controlling in which hosts have access to specific volumes within a cluster.

Internal storage Array-managed disks and drives that are held in enclosures and nodes that are part of the cluster.

Managed disk (MDisk) A component of a storage pool that is managed by a cluster. An MDisk is either a part of a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) array of internal storage or a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) logical unit (LU) for external storage. An MDisk is not visible to a host system on the SAN.

Storage pool A collection of storage capacities that provide the capacity requirements for a volume.

Thin provisioning or thin provisioned

The ability to define a storage unit (full system, storage pool, or volume) with a logical capacity size that is larger than the physical capacity assigned to that storage unit.

Volume

A discrete unit of storage on disk, tape, or other data recording medium that supports some form of identifier and parameter list, such as a volume label or I/O control

Extent

Each MDisk is divided into segments of equal size called extents. When a volume is created from a storage pool, the volume is allocated based on the number of extents required to satisfy the capacity requirements for the volume.

Table 1: IBM Storwize V7000 terminology


4 IBM Storwize V7000 and Real-time Compression Real-time Compressed volumes are now available with the latest 6.4.x code on the IBM Storwize V7000 disk system. This section gives an overview of the Real-time compression feature in the Storwize V7000 system and the mechanism in which Real-time compression manages the data.

4.1 Real-time Compression: An overview

The IBM Random Access Compression Engine (RACE) technology is the core of the Real-time Compression solution in IBM Storwize V7000.

At a high level, the IBM RACE component quickly compresses the data written into the storage system. This compression occurs transparently; whereas, Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI connected hosts are unaware of the compression occurring behind the scenes. RACE is an in-line compression technology, meaning that each host write is compressed as it passes through the storage software to the disks. This has a clear benefit over other compression technologies (which are post-processing based) that do not provide immediate capacity savings, and therefore are not a good fit for primary storage workloads such as databases and active data set applications.

RACE technology is implemented into the Storwize V7000 thin provisioning layer and is an organic part of the stack. Compression has been transparently integrated with the existing system management design. All of the Storwize V7000 advanced features are supported on the compressed volumes. You may create, delete, migrate, shrink, map (assign), and unmap (unassign) a compressed volume as if it were a fully-allocated volume. This compression method provides a non-disruptive conversion between compressed and uncompressed volumes. This provides a uniform user-experience and eliminates the need for special procedures to deal with the compressed volumes.

4.2 Real-time Compression data write flow

When a database server sends a write request to the Storwize V7000 or IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller, it reaches the cache layer. The database server is immediately sent an acknowledgement of its input and output. When the cache layer destages to the RACE, the I/Os are sent to the thin-provisioning layer and then to RACE, and if necessary, the original host write or writes. The metadata which holds the index of the compressed volume is updated, if needed, and is also compressed by itself.

4.3 Real-time Compression data read flow

When a database server sends a read request to the Storwize V7000 system, it reaches the cache layer: If there is a cache hit, the cache replies to the database server with the requested data. If there is a cache miss, the cache sends an internal read request to the thin-provisioning layer and in its turn to RACE.

4.3 Real-time Compression of existing data

In addition to compressing data in real-time, it is also possible to compress existing data sets. This is performed by adding a compressed mirrored copy to an existing volume, and deleting the original copy after the synchronization to the compressed copy is complete. This is performed non-disruptively, while the data remains online and accessible by applications and users. This capability enables customers to regain space from the storage pool, which can then be reused for other applications. In the case of


virtualization of external storage systems, the ability to compress the already stored data significantly enhances and accelerates the benefit to users, allowing them to see a tremendous return on their Storwize V7000 investment. On the initial purchase of a Storwize V7000 system with Real-time Compression, customers can defer their purchase of new storage. As new storage needs to be acquired, IT purchases a lower amount of the required storage before compression.

5 IBM Storwize V7000 Configuration This section talks about the configuration of the various components that were involved in testing. It includes: SAN configuration, MDisks configuration, storage pools, volumes, and hosts.

5.1 SAN configuration planning

For the best practices on SAN configuration planning, refer to the IBM Storwize V7000 Introduction and Implementation Guide from IBM Redbooks at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247938.pdf

5.2 MDisk configuration

In the Storwize V7000 system, the internal drives cannot be directly added to storage pools. They need to be included in a RAID to provide protection against the failure of individual drives. A RAID array is created as an MDisk, and during the array creation, wizards and presets are available to suggest configurations to users based on the hardware attached to the system. The recommendation is to use these presets for easy configuration and best performance.

5.3 Volume configuration

A volume is a logical disk that is presented to a host system by the IBM Storwize V7000 system. The IBM Storwize V7000 storage system translates this volume into a number of extents which are allocated across MDisks present in the storage pool.

Click Volumes by Pool from the pop-up menu on the side bar of the screen to open the Volumes by Pool panel. Click New Volume to launch the New Volume wizard. Select the Compressed preset, and then select the storage pool from which you want to create volumes.

6 Real-time Compression volumes for Oracle databases The Real-time Compressed volumes can be mapped to a single host in case of an Oracle single instance database, or to multiple hosts in case of Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). The Real-time Compresses volumes can be used with Oracle ASM, convention volume managers, file systems, or any other storage management solutions that Oracle has approved.

6.1 Real-time Compressed volumes with file system for Oracle data files

In this section, the test team used Real-time Compressed volumes having an Enhanced Journaled File System (JFS2) mounted and used for the Oracle data files.

6.1.1 Real-time Compressed volume creation

In the following figure, you can see the storage pool, ORCL_RTC, of 5.59 TB in capacity that has been created for this test.


Figure 2: New Real-time Compressed volume creation

By selecting the Compressed preset from the New Volume wizard, and using the ORCL_RTC storage pool the test team created five 200 GB Real-time Compressed volumes and mapped them to the host as shown in Figure 3.


Figure 3: Real-time Compressed volumes created and mapped to the host

Figure 4 shows the five 200 GB volumes after they were created and mapped to the host.

Figure 4: Newly created Real-time Compressed volumes


By right-clicking the ORCL_DATA_VOL01 volume and going to the properties tab, you can see that 200 GB of virtual capacity has been made available to the host, but only 96.50 KB of real capacity is being used, and this is also referred to as the compressed size.

Figure 5: Real-time Compressed volume properties

6.1.2 Assigning Real-time Compressed volumes to the host

The test team then converted the disk on the host to a physical volume by assigning it a physical volume identifier using the chdev command. Figure 6 shows that used capacity for the ORCL_DATA_VOL01 volume after the assignment of the physical volume ID has become 128.50 KB.


Figure 6: Real-time Compressed volume property after assigning it a physical volume ID


6.1.3 Volume group creation using Real-time Compressed volumes

The volumes: ORCL_DATA_VOL01, ORCL_DATA_VOL02, ORCL_DATA_VOL03, ORCL_DATA_VOL04, and ORCL_DATA_VOL05 were used to create a volume group, named orcl_data. Figure 7 shows the compression savings of all the volumes after being added to the volume group.

Figure 7: All the Real-time Compressed volumes after the volume group creation


Figure 8 shows that the used capacity for the ORCL_DATA_VOL01 volume, after it was added to the orcl_date volume group, is 232.50 KB.

Figure 8: Properties of the Real-time compressed volume after volume group creation

6.1.4 File system creation using Real-time Compressed volumes

Besides volumes ORCL_DATA_VOL01 to ORCL_DATA_VOL05 for the data file, ORCL_ARCH_VOL01 to ORCL_ARCH_VOL05 was created for storing the archive logs, and volume ORCL_LOG_VOL01 to ORCL_LOG_VOL05 was created to store the redo logs of the database. The /orcl_data file system was created using the compressed volumes ORCL_DATA_VOL01 to ORCL_DATA_VOL05, the /orcl_arch ile system was created using the compressed volumes ORCL_ARCH_VOL01 to ORCL_ARCH_VOL05, and the /orcl_log file system was created using the compressed volumes ORCL_LOG_VOL01 to ORCL_LOG_VOL05.

The Figure below shows the compression savings for each of the compressed volumes that were used to create the jfs2 file system. Note that at this point there are database files on these file systems.


Figure 9: Real-time Compressed volumes after the creation of the file systems

Figure 10 shows the ORCL_DATA_VOL01 volume which was one of the five volumes used for creating the jfs2 file system /orcl_data. You can see that the used capacity is 17.78 MB for this volume after the creation of the file system.


Figure 10: Real-time Compressed volume properties after the creation of the file system

6.1.5 Swingbench Order Entry schema creation

The Swingbench tool was used to create the Order Entry schema of Scale Factor 100. For the Order Entry schema the Order Entry Tablespace size is 320 GB, and the Temporary Tablespace size required is 60 GB.


Figure 11: Real-time Compressed volumes after the schema creation and data load

Table 2 shows the property overview of each of the five compressed volumes that were used to create the volume group on which the 1 TB file system was mounted.

Volume Name

ORCL_DATA_VOL01 ORCL_DATA_VOL02 ORCL_DATA_VOL03 O C L _ D A T A _ V O L 04 ORCL_DATA_VOL05

Used 30.0 MB 40.57 GB 88.78 GB 512.00 KB 3.31 MB

Before Compression

256.56 MB 158.38 GB 199.75 GB 572.00 KB 572.00 KB

Compression Saving

88.30 % 74.38 % 55.55% 10.49% 0.00%

Real 4.03 GB 44.58 GB 92.80 GB 4.02 GB 4.02 GB

Total 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB

Table 2: Properties of the Real-time Compressed volumes

Used: Is the amount of real size being used to store the data for the volume, sometimes referred to as compressed size.

Before Compression: Is the size of all the data that has been written to the volume calculated as if it was written without compression. This size is reflected in the host’s operating system.

Compression Saving: Is the estimated savings from compression.

Real: Is the amount of space from the storage pool allocated to allow the volume data to be stored. A compressed volume is by default a thin-provisioned volume that allows you to allocate space on demand. When a new volume is created, there is an option to define the actual size that it will create as a percentage of the original volume size. By default it is 2%. The volume will be expanded automatically according to the usage.


6.2 Real-time Compressed volumes with Oracle ASM for the Oracle data files

This section explains how to use the Real-time Compressed volumes to create an Oracle ASM disk group, and use it for the Oracle data files.

6.2.1 Oracle ASM disk group creation

The Real-time Compressed volumes :ORCL_DATA_01, ORCL_DATA_02, ORCL_DATA_03, and ORCL_DATA_04 were used to create an Oracle ASM disk group called DATA. At this point, there was no data loaded into the Oracle ASM disk group, DATA. Figure 12 shows the amount of space consumed on the ASM disk group on each of the compressed volumes.

Figure 12: Real-time Compressed volumes after the creation of the ASM disk group

6.2.2 Swingbench Order Entry schema creation

The Swingbench tool was used to create the Order Entry schema of Scale Factor 100. For the Order Entry schema, the Order Entry table space size is 320 GB, and the temporary table space size required is 60 GB. The Oracle ASM disk group (DATA) which had the Real-time Compressed volumes was used to create the table spaces for the schema.

If the disks are of the same size, ASM spreads the data evenly across all the disks in the disk group. This allocation pattern helps in maintaining every disk at the same capacity level.


Figure 13 shows the the compression savings on each of the volumes used in the ASM disk group, after the creation of schema and loading the data.

Figure 13: Real-time Compressed volume after the creation of the schema and the data load

Figure 14 shows the properties of one of the volumes used in the ASM disk group after loading the data. You can see that the used capacity is 34.34 GB, and the compression savings is 61.69%. As Oracle ASM uses the same amount of capacity on each of the volumes in the disk group, the used capacity and the compression savings are almost the same for all the other volumes in the disk group.


Figure 14: Real-time Compressed volume property after loading the data

The Table below shows the property overview of each of the four compressed volumes that were used to create the Oracle ASM disk group DATA that was used by the database for it’s data files. Volume Name ORCL_DATA_VOL01 ORCL_DATA_VOL02 ORCL_DATA_VOL03 OCL_DATA_VOL04

Used 34.34 GB 34.34 GB 34.34 GB 34.34 GB

Before Compression

89.65 GB 89.65 GB 89.65 GB 89.65 GB

Compression Saving

61.69 % 61.69 % 61.69 % 61.69 %

Real 39.35 GB 39.35 GB 39.35 GB 39.35 GB

Total 250 GB 250 GB 250 GB 250 GB

Table 3: Properties of the Real-time Compressed volumes


7 Summary The Real-time Compression feature of IBM Storwize V7000 addresses all the requirements of the primary storage data reduction for an Oracle single instance and Oracle RAC database. As the paper showed that the Real-time Compressed volumes can be used with file systems or with the Oracle ASM disk groups to store the data files. In both the cases, Real-time Compression provides excellent capacity saving and reduces the storage footprint that is required for an Oracle database.


8 Resources The following websites provide useful references to supplement the information contained in this paper:

• Deploying Oracle 11g RAC Release 2 with IBM Storwize V7000 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101772

• IBM SAN Volume Controller Performance Configuration Guidelines for Implementing Oracle Databases with Automatic Storage Management (ASM)

ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101481

• IBM Business Partner support and resources ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/weblook/index_us.html

• IBM Publications Center www.elink.ibmlink.ibm.com/public/applications/publications/cgibin/pbi.cgi?CTY=US

• IBM Redbooks ibm.com/redbooks

• IBM developerWorks® ibm.com/developerWorks


9 Trademarks and special notices © Copyright IBM Corporation 2012.

References in this document to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in every country.

IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at "Copyright and trademark information" at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.

Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

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Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both.

Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

Information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind.

All customer examples described are presented as illustrations of how those customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics may vary by customer.

Information concerning non-IBM products was obtained from a supplier of these products, published announcement material, or other publicly available sources and does not constitute an endorsement of such products by IBM. Sources for non-IBM list prices and performance numbers are taken from publicly available information, including vendor announcements and vendor worldwide homepages. IBM has not tested these products and cannot confirm the accuracy of performance, capability, or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions on the capability of non-IBM products should be addressed to the supplier of those products.

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Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the user's job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve throughput or performance improvements equivalent to the ratios stated here.

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