netapp oracle asm

NETAPP TECHNICAL REPORT

ORACLE ® ASM AND NETAPP: SIMPLIFIED DATABASE MANAGEMENT, PERFORMANCE AND PROTECTION Alvin Richards, Network Appliance, Inc. March 2007 | WP-7009-0307

Oracle ASM and NetApp: Simplified Database Management, Performance, and Protection 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 3

2 MANAGEMENT ......................................... ................................................................................. 4

ORACLE AUTOMATIC STORAGE MANAGER .................. ...................................................................................................... 4

NETAPP SNAPMANAGER FOR ORACLE..................... ........................................................................................................... 4

DATABASE SNAPSHOT COPIES.......................... ................................................................................................................... 5

SNAPRESTORE......................................................................................................................................................................... 6

ASM WITH FLEXCLONE COPIES......................... .................................................................................................................... 6

3 PERFORMANCE AND UTILIZATION........................ ................................................................ 7

OPTIMIZING HOST I/O............................................................................................................................................................... 7

OPTIMIZING STORAGE I/O....................................................................................................................................................... 7

PRIORITIZING APPLICATION I/O ...................... ....................................................................................................................... 8

4 DATA RESILIENCE.................................... ................................................................................ 9

BLOCK CORRUPTION .................................. ............................................................................................................................ 9

LOST WRITES.......................................................................................................................................................................... 10

DISK FAILURES..................................... .................................................................................................................................. 10

5 DATA PROTECTION.................................... ............................................................................ 12

RECOVERY AND RESTORE CONSIDERATIONS............... ................................................................................................... 12

PROTECTION: ASM CHALLENGES........................ ............................................................................................................... 13

STORAGE UTILIZATION AND DATABASE PROTECTION ....... ............................................................................................ 13

HOST-BASED VS. STORAGE-BASED PROTECTION........... ................................................................................................ 14

BACKUP AND RECOVERY: ASM CHALLENGES ............... .................................................................................................. 14

AUTOMATED AND EFFICIENT ASM CLONES ................ ...................................................................................................... 14

DATA TIERING WITH ASM DISK GROUPS................. ........................................................................................................... 15

DATA PROTECTION................................... ............................................................................................................................. 16

6 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 17

ABOUT NETAPP...................................... ................................................................................................................................ 18

ABOUT ORACLE ...................................... ............................................................................................................................... 18

REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................................................................... 18


1 INTRODUCTION Today’s database administrator (DBA) is struggling to manage ever-expanding databases that consume more storage, generate more transactions and include new data types. Datasets continue to grow dramatically, applications are becoming more distributed, and customers and service level agreements (SLAs) are intolerant of data loss or performance degradation.

Today’s baseline expectations are:

• Zero downtime

• Zero data loss

• Peak performance

• 7x24 data availability

Time available for database backup, recovery, and cloning operations continues to shrink, and the luxury of monitoring database performance, identifying hot spots, and manually tuning is a thing of the past.

As a DBA, you’re responsible for any business's most important asset: information. Maintaining performance, protection and availability seems more complex now than ever before, and requires a DBA to consider the following:

Management

• How do I ensure consistent database availability?

• What are the limitations of using ASM alone for data management?

• How can I automate database backups and restores, quickly and easily?

• Can I use the same solution for NAS, iSCSI and Fibre Channel?

Performance

• How can I maintain consistent performance?

• Is my database performance host CPU bound, host I/O bound, disk I/O bound?

• How do I instantaneously save and restore a database at any point-in-time without impacting application or network performance?

• Am I getting maximum I/O performance from my storage and disk subsystems?

Protection

• How do I easily protect databases from inevitable system faults including block corruptions, lost writes and failed disks?

• Am I protecting databases, or just disk groups?

• Why is storage utilization critical to database protection?

• How do I ensure that I/Os are prioritized for my most important databases?

In this white paper, we will explore answers to these and other questions. We’ll see how unique integrated technology from Oracle and NetApp simplifes database management and provides automated methods to improve, optimize and maintain performance, utilization and protection of your Oracle databases across all storage topologies including Fibre Channel SAN, IP SAN and NAS.


2 MANAGEMENT A DBA strives for automated administration and management best practices that optimize available resources to deliver the highest levels of database performance and availability possible (zero downtime). Achieving these best practices requires integrated application-centric management solutions that reduce complexity, are simple to use, support automation, and deliver a lower total cost of ownership without compromising performance or availability. NetApp and Oracle have jointly engineered a solution that enables more efficient database management.

ORACLE AUTOMATIC STORAGE MANAGER Oracle’s “Automatic Storage Management” (ASM) is a powerful and portable storage manager designed to manage Oracle Database 10g™ database files. ASM simplifies storage management so that DBAs worry less about Oracle Database file layout and management (figure 1). ASM delivers lower total cost of ownership while increasing storage utilization, all without compromising performance or availability. With ASM, a fraction of the time is needed to manage your database files. ASM key features include:

• Volume Management

• Database File System with performance of RAW I/O

• Supports clustering (RAC) and single instance

• Automatic data distribution

• Online add/drop/resize disk with automated data relocation

• Automatic file management

• Flexible mirror protection

Figure 1) Automatic Storage Management (ASM).

NETAPP SNAPMANAGER ® FOR ORACLE NetApp provides the other half of this efficient database management solution with SnapManager for Oracle (SMO). NetApp is the first to deliver a tightly integrated disk-based backup with granular recovery at the file level for Oracle customers using ASM technology. SnapManager for Oracle is a host-based management tool that integrates tightly with your Oracle Database to simplify, automate, and optimize database backup, recovery, and cloning (figure 2).


Figure 2) SnapManager integration with Oracle.

SnapManager for Oracle provides capabilities that enable instantaneous and efficient disk-based backups of Oracle ASM-based databases. In addition to fast backups, SnapManager supports rapid restore and recovery of a failed Oracle Database instance within minutes. It leverages Snapshot™ technology to provide automated, instantaneous, and space-efficient backups of Oracle Databases. It utilizes SnapRestore® technology to provide automated and rapid restore and recovery of the Oracle Databases. It uses FlexClone™ technology to provide fast, automated creation of database clones within minutes. SnapManager for Oracle combines these with the NetApp intelligent storage infrastructure to simplify and optimize data management operations.

SnapManager for Oracle is also protocol agnostic: it provides the same protection across NFS, iSCSI, and FCP.

DATABASE SNAPSHOT COPIES SnapManager for Oracle utilizes Snapshot copies (figure 3) to provide instantaneous and space-efficient backups of Oracle Databases. A Snapshot copy can be defined as a locally retained point-in-time image of data. NetApp Snapshot technology offers unique advantages because a NetApp Snapshot copy does not involve copying of data from one location to another, so it is extremely fast and space-efficient. A NetApp Snapshot copy is created extremely fast, regardless of the size of the volume or the level of activity on the NetApp storage system.

Figure 3) How storage Snapshot copies work.

SnapManager integrates with Oracle for instantaneous and efficient disk-based backups, restores and clones. The DBA just has to specify the database and SnapManager does the rest automatically.


SNAPRESTORE SnapManager for Oracle uses SnapRestore to provide rapid restores of Oracle Databases. SnapRestore software uses stored Snapshot copies that enable data (a multiterabyte file system, a single file, or a LUN) to be reverted to a previous state and content very rapidly. By not physically relocating any data, SnapRestore can recover entire point-in-time images without impacting system performance.

ASM WITH FLEXCLONE COPIES A unique feature of SnapManager is its ability to automate cloning of Oracle Databases. Using the unique NetApp FlexClone capability, SnapManager rapidly creates writable clones of the Snapshot copy created during backup (figure 4). Because the clone is based on a Snapshot copy, it is fast and efficient since only changed blocks are stored, and modifying a clone has no impact on the source database. As a result, each developer or QA team can be provided with its own personal copy of the database. Developers and QA teams can make any modifications to these personal copies and even destroy them, if needed, without affecting the other users. Just as they do with backups and restores, DBAs do not need to worry about the underlying storage layout of the database for cloning. DBAs just need to specify a specific backup or a database that they would like to clone, and SnapManager does the rest.

SnapManager provides these clone capabilities for all configurations of the Oracle Database. This includes both standalone and RAC configurations. Both these configurations can be used along with and without ASM for managing database storage.

Figure 4) SnapManager for Oracle leverages FlexClone to create database clones.


3 PERFORMANCE AND UTILIZATION Optimizing database performance and utilization requires much more than manual tuning. As a DBA, you should consider system-wide issues across applications, hosts, infrastructure and storage. In addition to database management, performance and utilization considerations include:

• Is my performance host CPU bound, host I/O bound, disk I/O bound?

• Have I configured disks for space and I/O requirements?

• How do I balance host I/O loads across disk groups?

• Are I/Os being prioritized for my most critical databases?

• Do I need different solutions for NAS, iSCSI and Fibre Channel?

Well-balanced I/O on the host does not mean well-balanced I/O on the storage, and vice-versa. Optimal database performance requires implementing complementary (striping) solutions for balancing I/O on both the host and storage.

Managing I/O load balancing at multiple levels across different storage protocols can be challenging, but with Oracle ASM and NetApp, it’s not only possible…it’s simple and flexible.

OPTIMIZING HOST I/O Host based distribution and balancing of I/O load can be done several ways. You can simply avoid it, and add more disks...but this is arguably a short-term fix for just a handful of environments. Another alternative is to use a Logical Volume Manager (LVM); however, the ability to balance and relocate data from one host disk to another is a capability many LVMs do not provide.

Oracle ASM provides a powerful alternative to other LVM solutions to balance the I/O from a host perspective (host side I/O striping), and more importantly, ASM complements storage striping performance optimization.

ASM can help spread the I/O load:

• Balances I/O across Disks in a Disk Group

• Eliminates “hot spots” by dynamic relocation of data from Disk to Disk

ASM rebalances when:

• Disk is added or dropped from a Disk Group

• alter diskgroup <diskgroup> rebalance

ASM Disk is both a unit of space and a unit of I/O:

• ASM does not know how the LUN is mapped to Disks

• Ensures that each LUN making up a Disk Group is made up of similar specification physical drives

Balancing the load across ASM Disks does not balance load on the storage system, so optimizing performance not only means ensuring that each LUN making up a Disk Group is made up of similar specification physical drives, but that storage I/O performance is optimized for all physical disks.

OPTIMIZING STORAGE I/O In addition to host based load balancing, storage system performance should also be considered. Within the storage system, physical disk drive spindles have a physical I/O limit; if there is significant activity on a single volume, often a “Hot LUN” will be created and become a storage I/O bottleneck that affects overall system, database and application performance. In most cases, disks on other volumes are no help in alleviating the problem. The key to complementing host I/O performance improvements with ASM is storage-side I/O performance optimization that uses all available storage subsystem I/O by automatically balancing I/O across multiple physical disk spindles.

FlexVol® from NetApp pools storage resources automatically, aggregating physical disk I/O across all your disks and enabling fast creation of multiple, high-performance flexible volumes (figure 5). FlexVol technology makes all disks available to all datasets through a common pool of storage. This flexibility means quick and


seamless addition of storage when and where it is necessary without disruption to your applications or infrastructure, or compromising database performance and availability.

Figure 5) FlexVol automatically pools storage resources.

Combining Oracle ASM to balance disk group I/O loads on hosts and NetApp FlexVol to create flexible high-performance storage volumes is simple, and ensures peak database I/O performance across your entire infrastructure.

How do you now ensure that I/Os are prioritized for your most important databases?

PRIORITIZING APPLICATION I/O Optimizing I/O at the Host and Storage with ASM and FlexVol volumes provides many performance advantages, including elimination of I/O bottlenecks, hot LUNs, etc. However, it is important to ensure that application I/O be prioritized to provide the right balance of service level and cost. Storage administrators need tools to ensure that the most business-critical applications will receive resource priority. At the same time, the flexibility to change priorities must also be provided.

NetApp FlexShare™ is a powerful tool that enables granular I/O prioritization control for Data ONTAP® 7G storage systems. With FlexShare, you can host multiple workloads on a single NetApp system and assign individual priorities to each (figure 6). FlexShare gives storage administrators the ability to leverage existing infrastructure and increase processing utilization without sacrificing the performance allocated to business-critical tasks. Using FlexShare, administrators can confidently consolidate disparate applications, prioritize specific datasets, and dynamically adjust priorities if business needs change.

Figure 6) FlexShare provides the ability to easily prioritize I/O.

FlexShare is enabled when storage systems become fully loaded and require prioritization of resources. Five priority levels are available and are allocated by volume. Since critical system operations such as backup are time critical, the highest priority levels can be assigned to specific workloads to ensure that business deadlines are met. The result is that you get all of the benefits of storage consolidation without sacrificing performance and customer service (Table 1).


Table 1) Performance.

Good Balance I/O across disks in a disk group ASM

Better Flexible volumes that optimize I/O across all disks (storage), balance I/O across disks in disk group (host)

ASM NetApp FlexVol

Best Flexible volumes that optimize I/O across all disks ( storage), balance I/O across disks in disk group (host), and provide application prioritized I/O automatically for SLAs, etc.

ASM NetApp FlexVol NetApp FlexShare

4 DATA RESILIENCE Resilience is the ability to maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of various faults and challenges to normal operation. As your databases expand, consume more storage and generate more transactions, a DBA must have a database resilience strategy that maintains levels of service when inevitable system faults occur, including block corruptions, lost writes and failed disks.

BLOCK CORRUPTION Oracle allocates logical database space in data blocks, extents, and segments. A data block is the smallest unit of I/O used by a database. Block corruption can be caused by "hardware hiccups" as data moves across your network (HBAs, switches, etc.) but whatever the cause, it is the responsibility of the DBA to ensure data integrity, and fix the corruption quickly. Fixing the problem can be challenging, as it is typically very difficult to identify the source of block corruption. Often the only solution available is to restore and recreate a database from a backup, with minimal (or zero) downtime.

While Oracle provides DBAs options for repairs of block corruption (RMAN, etc.), the ideal approach for managing block corruption is active and automated detection and prevention of corruption before it happens:

• Writes that logically or physically corrupt blocks

• Writes of partial or incomplete blocks

• Writes to incorrect locations or by other applications

NetApp SnapManager for Oracle provides automated block level validation of backups, and SnapValidator® from NetApp implements Oracle HARD checks before a write is acknowledged, preventing corrupt blocks from being written in the first place (Table 2).

Table 2) Block corruption.

Good Passive checking and detection

Check for block corruption on backup (using RMAN, etc.) dbv can be run against online and backup database files

Better Active checking and detection

Oracle HARD: allows vendors to re-compute block checksums. Increase latency for writes, as checksum is recomputed (typically < 5%)

Best Automated checking and detection

Use NetApp SnapManager for Oracle for automated bloc k level validation of backups

Use NetApp SnapValidator to eliminate corrupt block writes

Supports all protocols: NFS, iSCSI, and FCP

An effective resilience strategy not only anticipates block corruption, but lost writes and disk corruption scenarios as well.


LOST WRITES A lost write can occur for many reasons, for example, when a disk driver receives a successful write completion, but a subsequent read of block returns old contents:

• Disk block contains data D1

• Disk driver writes data D2, and write completes successfully

• Subsequent read returns data D1 instead of expected data D2

Block checksums don’t help since both data and checksums are lost together, so on subsequent reads old data and checksums still match. Zoned checksums store data and checksums on different blocks and update using separate I/Os, but they don’t cover the case in which both I/Os are lost (checksum and data match and corruption cannot be detected). While ASM is powerful, it cannot detect lost writes. NetApp Data ONTAP 7G detects and repairs lost writes on the storage subsystem automatically “on-the-fly.”

DISK FAILURES Hard disks have become much more reliable over the last several years; however, hard disks are very complex electromechanical devices and can occasionally fail due to firmware corruption, electronic failure, mechanical failure, and logical corruption. In the event of disk failure, data must be protected using RAID. There are several types of RAID (Figure 7):

• Storage Hardware RAID-1 (mirroring)

• Storage Hardware RAID-5 (single disk parity protection)

• Storage Hardware RAID-6 (double disk parity protection)

Figure 7) RAID-1 and RAID-5.

Let’s consider the storage requirements and performance impact of each option (Table 3).

Table 3) Raid options.

XOR calculation on writes and when data reconstructed;none when adding disks

N+2; N≈≈≈≈14(2/N or 14%)

2 failed disks or 1 failed disk and hard disk errors

RAID-6(RAID-DP™)

XOR calculation on writes, data reconstructed and when disks addedN+1; N≈≈≈≈7

(1/N or 14%)

1 failed disk or uncorrectable disk (hard) errors

RAID-5(“RAID”)

2x writes; none to add or reconstruct2N(N or 100%)

Multiple disks, exceptmirror pairs

RAID-1(Mirroring)

Performance Impact# of Disks (Cost Hit)Failure ProtectionRAID Level

XOR calculation on writes and when data reconstructed;none when adding disks

N+2; N≈≈≈≈14(2/N or 14%)

2 failed disks or 1 failed disk and hard disk errors

RAID-6(RAID-DP™)

XOR calculation on writes, data reconstructed and when disks addedN+1; N≈≈≈≈7

(1/N or 14%)

1 failed disk or uncorrectable disk (hard) errors

RAID-5(“RAID”)

2x writes; none to add or reconstruct2N(N or 100%)

Multiple disks, exceptmirror pairs

RAID-1(Mirroring)

Performance Impact# of Disks (Cost Hit)Failure ProtectionRAID Level


While mirroring is a good alternative, it requires double disk capacity, and doesn’t protect against lost writes and failure of a mirror pair. RAID 5 protects against any single disk failure, but how likely is data loss during a RAID reconstruct? Turns out it’s not as improbable as it may seem (figure 8). Can you be sure it’s not mission-critical data?

How likely is data loss during a RAID reconstructio n process?

Let’s try an example with four 400GB SATA drives, with a hard drive manufacturer stated bit error rate of “1 per 100 trillion.”

If one drive fails, reconstruction requires all data from the other three drives to be read.

The expected failure rate for this would be the total bits read divided by the single-bit failure rate…nearly 10%.

Figure 8) Data loss during a RAID reconstruction process.

NetApp RAID-DP is standard on all NetApp Systems, and provides RAID-1 protection and efficiency, protects against failure of the mirror pair (RAID-0 does not), with RAID-5 (disk capacity) costs (Table 4).

Table 4) Disk failures.

Good ASM or RAID-1 Mirroring Good performance and low overhead, cannot protect against failed mirror pair failure

Better RAID-5 Parity Requires less capacity, cannot protect against failure or errors on two disks

Best RAID-DP Double Parity RAID-DP provides RAID-1 protection and efficiency with RAID-5 costs


5 DATA PROTECTION Following data reliance, a protection and backup strategy for databases should also be developed. As databases grow and the number of database files increase, a manageable and effective data protection strategy must consider more than just storage:

• Protection of databases, not disk groups (restore a database, not a disk group)

• Granularity of protection (how many backups and restores are enough?)

• Impact to applications, host CPU, network availability (not just storage)

• Backup and restore windows (more backups, more often…24 hours in a day)

Let’s review each of these areas, and a few others, briefly (Table 5).

Table 5) Backup considerations.

Issue Considerations

Smaller maintenance windows Business moving to 24x7x365 operation Smaller windows for backup

SLAs mandate short recovery times Smaller windows to restore Database Require more frequent backups

Online versus offline Offline backups simpler

� Database not available

Online backups have performance impact

� 15-20% host CPU utilization impact

Physical I/O increase (whole log block writes)

RECOVERY AND RESTORE CONSIDERATIONS Minimizing the mean time to recovery (MTTR) requires that a DBA understand and take steps to control and shrink restore and recovery times (Table 6).

Table 6) Recovery and restore considerations.


Restore time depends on Amount of data to transfer I/O rate of backup store (tape, disk) Host CPU and network contention

Recovery time depends on Amount of logs that need to be applied Directly related to transaction rate and time between backups

Recovery efficiency depends on Granularity that storage can recover

� Typically LUN or File level

� Advanced storage allows for partial LUN restore

What needs to be restored

� Whole database

� Partial database (tablespaces or data files)

What is using the Disk Group

� If a single Database, whole Disk Group can be restored

If multiple Databases, then individual files within the Disk Group need to be restored


PROTECTION: ASM CHALLENGES Now that we’ve considered backup and recovery issues, let’s consider different data protection options. First, using ASM alone is not enough: since ASM stamps the Disk with the Disk Group name, copying the Disk and adding it back into the same ASM Instance will not be allowed—the Disk would have the same name. It is possible to use RMAN for Database backup, but this may not be the best strategy. Consider the following regarding using RMAN for Database backup (and cloning):

• Takes (a lot of) time because it’s a physical copy

• Impacts the host and network because it’s a physical copy

• Doubles the space because it’s a physical copy (original + backup)

• Inefficient free space management (unused blocks are copied as well)

Traditionally each RMAN backup copy is a physical copy, so a 500GB Database requires 1TB of storage. This approach can rapidly lead to overallocation, wasted disk resources, and a decline in disk utilization that affects overall data protection.

STORAGE UTILIZATION AND DATABASE PROTECTION Is storage utilization important to database protection? Yes, it is critically important. Storage utilization directly impacts time required for backup windows, the availability of your application and network, and the level of database protection and restoration achievable. Underutilized storage is physical storage that is allocated, but unused. Often free space is fragmented across multiple volumes, and reallocation of space can be a time-consuming, disruptive operation. Protecting underutilized storage wastes precious management resources and translates directly into slower database backups and longer backup windows. NetApp FlexVol thin provisioning improves utilization by not pre-allocating disk, and automatically pooling all free space together (Figure 9).

Figure 9) How free space is wasted.

Beyond utilization, note that RMAN is a host based data movement tool, and with host based data movement, each block needs to be read and written by the host, potentially impacting application performance and availability by consuming CPU and network resources. The larger the database, the longer it takes to move the data. Let’s take a quick look at host vs. storage based data protection.


HOST-BASED VS. STORAGE-BASED PROTECTION There are considerations when selecting where your backups occur: on the host or on the storage (Table 7).

Table 7) Host-based vs. storage-based considerations.

Host-based Backups (RMAN, NetBackup, etc.) Storage-based Backups

Read all required blocks from storage

Writes all blocks to secondary store (e.g., tape)

Tool may have “incremental” feature to reduce the physical I/O

Potential impact on host CPU resources

Potential impact on network resources

May affect application availability

Moves and stores all blocks: free, changed or unchanged

Independent of Database layout

Can utilize Snapshot functionality

Operates using pointers, not blocks

Consistent and fast backup times

Consistent and fast restore times

Not Database size dependent

No physical I/O required

Stores just changed blocks

No host CPU impact

Can be sensitive to Database layout

Storage based Snapshot based backup solutions enable faster and more frequent backups, deliver shorter recovery times and enable you to meet the SLAs.

BACKUP AND RECOVERY: ASM CHALLENGES ASM is not storage Snapshot aware, which makes it difficult to identify a dataset for a Snapshot copy, as the database storage layout is hidden behind ASM disk groups. Snapshot copies in ASM environments must meet the following requirements (Table 8).

Table 8) Requirements for Snapshot copies in ASM environments.


Consistent copy of the ASM Disks within an ASM Disk Group

Need an exact point in time Snapshot copy across volumes or storage servers

Understand the ASM file system Need to ensure data relocation has not occurred during backup

Copy ASM disk group for backup verification or DB clones

Requires renaming of ASM disk group

Ability to restore a file “in-place” into a Disk Group

Requires a full understanding of how the ASM file-system is laid out within the LUN or file

Requires sophisticated technology for partial LUN or file restoration

AUTOMATED AND EFFICIENT ASM CLONES As previously mentioned, a unique feature of SnapManager for Oracle is its ability to automate cloning of Oracle Databases. NetApp FlexClone copies are created extremely quickly, in a few seconds, and clones only consume enough storage to hold modified blocks (Figure 10). Because the clone is based on a Snapshot copy, modifying a clone has no impact on the source database (Table 9).


Figure 10) How FlexClone makes ASM disk group cloning efficient.

Table 9) ASM disk group cloning considerations.


Create logical copy of ASM Disks using FlexClone

No physical movement of data required

� No impact on Host CPU

� No impact on Network

When the Clone is created, it takes up no additional space

� Only store the changed blocks

� 500GB Database clone takes only a few additional KBs

Automate the cloning with SnapManager for Oracle

Allows cloned ASM disks to be added back to same ASM Instance

Simplified management using a single ASM Instance

DATA TIERING WITH ASM DISK GROUPS Tiering is the separation of data into different levels of priority, and just a few considerations when provisioning your ASM disk groups will maximize system performance-to-cost, availability and utilization (Table 10 and Figure 11).

Table 10) Data tiering considerations.


Create Disk Group with Disks of similar capability

Disk size, speed, IOPs, etc.

Disk Group represents your Service Level Objective

FC 15K disks are “gold”

ATA 7.5K disks are “bronze"

Choose the appropriate Disk Group based on needs

Log and Data files are on “gold”

Archive Logs are on “bronze”


Figure 11) Data tiering.

Note that NetApp can back up and restore a database when Disk Groups are shared, unlike other storage solutions. With NetApp, there is no need to separate ASM Disk Groups by Database.

DATA PROTECTION

Table 11) Data protection considerations.

Best Separate Data by Disk Groups

Utilize storage based backup and restore

� Perform more frequent and faster backups

� Eliminate host CPU impact of “hot backup”

� Time and Space efficient

Reduction in Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)

Put static and dynamic data into their own Disk Groups

Separate Logs and Data into their own Disk Groups

Create consistent Snapshot copies across Volumes and Storage Systems of ASM Disk Groups

Restore files in place using Partial LUN Restore

Automated by SnapManager for Oracle


6 CONCLUSION The combined capabilities of Oracle ASM and NetApp (Table 12) are a unique and powerful automated database management solution that simplifies and optimizes performance, utilization and data protection for Oracle Databases across FC SAN, iSCSI SAN and NAS.

Table 12) Combined capabilities of Oracle ASM and NetApp.

Simple, automated management and fast and very storage efficient clones of ASM backed databases can be automated by cloning with SnapManager for Oracle. In addition, SnapManager for Oracle provides the following capabilities:

• Allows cloned ASM disks to be added back to same ASM Instance

• Simplified management using a single ASM Instance

• FlexClone copies are near-instantaneous and only store changed blocks

Managing I/O load balancing at multiple levels across different storage protocols can be challenging, but with Oracle ASM and NetApp, it’s not only possible…it’s flexible and simple.

Protecting underutilized storage wastes precious management resources and translates directly into slower database backups and longer backup windows. However, NetApp FlexVol volumes improve utilization by automatically pooling all free space together and aggregating I/O across all physical disk spindles.

Storage based solutions enable faster and more frequent backups, deliver shorter recovery times and enable you to meet SLAs.

With ASM and NetApp FlexVol volumes, FlexClone and SnapManager for Oracle, you can dramatically simplify database protection by automating the creation of extremely fast and efficient logical copies of ASM disks without impacting CPU or network resources, as often as you like.

ABOUT NETAPP Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today’s data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts that simplify data management. Information about Network Appliance™ solutions and services is available at www.netapp.com.

ABOUT ORACLE Oracle (www.oracle.com) is the world’s largest enterprise software company, specializing in database, middleware, and business applications for managing and automating processes and other critical business infrastructure software. The company delivers software, consulting, outsourcing, and other services to help enterprises solve their most critical information management problems.

REFERENCES

Alvin Richards

Optimizing ASM Deployments for Resiliency, Data Protection, Utilization, and Performance www.netapp.com/go/techontap/matl/smo_oow_102506.pdf

Dave Hitz

Dave’s Blog, Mar. 21, 2006, Expect Double Disk Failures With ATA Drives http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/TechTalk/?permalink=Expect-Double-Disk-Failures-With-ATA-Drives.html

Blaine McFadden

Best Practices Guide: SnapManager for Oracle www.netapp.com/library/tr/3452.pdf

John Elliott

Performance Report: Oracle 10g RAC on Linux® www.netapp.com/library/tr/3423.pdf

Brajesh Goyal and Ara Shakian

SnapManager for Oracle with Oracle Database 10g Grid www.netapp.com/library/tr/3426.pdf

Eric Barrett, Bikash R. Choudhury, Bruce Clarke, Bl aine McFadden, Tushar Patel, Ed Hsu, Christopher Slater and Michael Tatum

Network Appliance Best Practice Guidelines for Oracle www.netapp.com/library/tr/3369.pdf

© 2007 Network Appliance, Inc. All rights reserved. Specifications subject to change without notice. NetApp, the Network Appliance logo, Data ONTAP, FlexVol, SnapManager, SnapRestore, and SnapValidator are registered trademarks and Network Appliance, FlexClone, ,FlexShare, RAID-DP, and Snapshot are trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Oracle is a registered trademark and Oracle10g is a trademark of Oracle Corporation. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. WP-7009-0207

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