configurations for multiple instances on 4 nodes

How to handle multiple databases without enough memory.

Lets say we have 2 environments that need to use the same 4 node cluster.  Each application has 3 instances.  For simplicity lets call the apps

• DBFS
• MSTDB
• DWDB

Now to separate out the 2 environments lets give each environment it’s own set of database.

DBFSI

MSTDBI

DWDBI

DBFSP

MSTDBP

DWDBP

We have 6 instances from 2 environments that all need to be running on 4 nodes with 96g apiece.

RECOMMENDATION

1)      Split the 4 node cluster in ½ .  Put the Imp systems on the first 2 nodes, and he perf systems on the second 2 nodes.

2)      Create 3 different sets of “databases” and “instances” through srvrctl.  These 3 sets will contain 3 different sets of instances.  Only 1 of these 3 will be up at any time.  They will be the same set of datafiles, just different configurations. By overriding the memory settings in the Init file, and have 3 sets of sids in the SPFILE, this configuration is possible.

3)      Start up the appropriate databases (and instances) for the proper configuration

Database	SGA	instance	Nodes
DBFSI	20g	DBFSI1-DBFSI2	dbnode1/dbnode2
LDBFSI	70g	LDBFSI1-LDBFSI4	dbnode1/dbnode2 dbnode3/dbnode4
SDBPFSI	4g	SDBPFSI1	dbnode1
MSTDBI	20g	MSTDBI1-MSTDBI2	dbnode1/dbnode2
LMSTDBI	70G	LMSTDBI1-LMSTDBI4	dbnode1/dbnode2 dbnode3/dbnode4
SMSTDBI	4g	SMSTDBI1	dbnode2
DWDBI	20g	DWDBI1-DWDBI2	dbnode1/dbnode2
LDWDBI	70G	LDWDBI1-LDWDBI4	dbnode1/dbnode2 dbnode3/dbnode4
SDWDBI	4g	SDWDBI1	dbnode1
DBFSP	20g	DBFSP1-DBFSP2	dbnode3/dbnode4
LDBFSP	70g	LDBFSP1-LDBFSP4	dbnode1/dbnode2 dbnode3/dbnode4
SDBPFSP	4g	SDBPFSP1	dbnode3
MSTDBP	20g	MSTDBP1-MSTDBP2	dbnode3/dbnode4
LMSTDBP	70G	LMSTDBP1-LMSTDBP4	dbnode1/dbnode2 dbnode3/dbnode4
SMSTDBP	4g	SMSTDBP1	dbnode4
DWDBP	20g	DWDBP1-DWDBP2	dbnode3/dbnode4
LDWDBP	70G	LDWDBP1-LDWDBP4	dbnode1/dbnode2 dbnode3/dbnode4
SDWDBP	4g	SDWDBP1	dbnode4

OK, now that I have 3 sets of 6 databases combined, what will the actual configuration choices be ??

Normal configuration showing memory usage

Database	dbnode1	dbnode2	dbnode3	dbnode4
DBFSI	20	20
MSTDBI	20	20
DWDBI	20	20
DBFSP			20	20
MSTDBP			20	20
DWDBP			20	20
Total	60g	60g	60g	60g

Perf Isolated testing of DWDB

Database	dbnode1	dbnode2	dbnode3	dbnode4
DBFSI	20	20
MSTDBI	20	20
DWDBI	20	20
SDBFSP			4
SMSTDBP				4
LDWDBP			70	70
Total	60g	60g	74g	74g

Perf Full testing of DWDB

Database	dbnode1	dbnode2	dbnode3	dbnode4
SDBFSI	4
SMSTDBI		4
SDWDBI		4
SDBFSP			4
SMSTDBP				4
LDWDBP	70g	70g	70	70
Total	74g	78g	74g	74g

You can see that with this configuration, it is possible to carefully manage the Database usage.  The above examples can be used to make any one of the database span the whole machine, while the others sit on one node in a small configuration.

Fancy new Disk array technology

Well first off, I need to put a big disclaimer down.  These are my opinions, and my opinions only.  These to do not reflect the opinions of my employer, my spouse or my dog.

I was watching some twitter updates go by and this blogpost caught my eye. 
http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/2011/10/shifts-happen.html

This blog was talking about new disk technology, and part of the covered the idea of FAST technology.  If you haven't heard of FAST (this is the EMC name, I'm sure other vendors have their own flavors), it is disk technology that moves blocks to the best tier of storage automagically. Really !  The idea is that you buy an array with 3 different tiers of disk.  Flash, Fibre channel, and Sata.  The disk array learns the patterns for the data access, and moves the data to the appropriate tiers.  Sounds great right  ?  It does make sense.. 
Let take an example...  Let say that you are a supplier and you supply parts for 100,000 small businesses.  You keep historical data their orders for 5 years for reference.  Whenever they place a new order you reference their latest orders to find patterns.

So following this workload you can guess what happens.. The current data for your customers stays in fiber channel (everything starts in fibre channel),  The old data gets migrated to sata, and your customer master data will most likely go the Flash.  All well and good.  Even though customers only order every month, their recent activity gets moved to a higher tier disk, and all that old history gets moved to Sata.  

Now lets throw in a physical standby, dataguard .

With dataguard, we are writing the new blocks of history, and they are not accessed (this is cold standby).  If you mix this data with other applications that are busy, all your data for the standby database is surely going to end up in Sata over time.. This makes perfect sense to the algorithms for the array.  This historical data (or even current data) isn't accessed. For your standby sata it is !!

Bang... Sinking feeling.... wham.. You do a failover. 

Now lets see what happens.. All your data is in Sata.  You are now accessing, and trying to give your customers the same performance they are used to.  You system is slow.  You have 100,000 business, that access data over the course of the month.  How long do you think it takes to move all the data from SATA to Flash or Fibre ?  It could take quite a while for your system to learn the new patterns, and during this time your old primary (now standby) has it's data pattern getting changed. The data is getting migrated to SATA.  You stay in your alternative site for a month, fail back, and guess what.. WHAM again.  The disk array has to learn the pattern again.

As I said, this is all conjecture, and solely my opinion.

Configuring an Exadata (follow up)

Now that we have the exadata and it is up and running, we are working on getting it configured for ease of maintenance.  I know there are some notes from metalink that can be helpful.

The first thing I wanted to do was get the machine (and all the hardware) configured with OCM (oracle Configuration manager).  Like most things with the exadata, there is a special configuration piece for this called the "mass deployment Kit"..  Here is a link for the latest information on it.

 On MOS [ID 1319476.1]

I am still in the process of getting this configured by using the Oracle support Hub (or repeater).  A lot of this information is contained in the PDF mentioned in the My Oracle Support note.  As you can imagine, the exadata is usually installed in a companies core infrastructure, far within any firewalls.  Connecting directly out to the internet isn't always possible, so setting up a repeater (like a proxy) as part of grid (or separately) will help get your configuration information sent up to oracle support.

The second item is Grid/Cloud 12c.  I have to say that I set up Cloud 12c for the exadata about 48 hours after it came out.  It was relatively easy.  You just add the database nodes (and push out the agents), then once the database nodes are done, you use the tools with grid to walk you through discovering all the components (by starting with one of the database nodes). It all worked well, and there are some notes now on this.  Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Setup Automation kit for Exadata

So the exadata is close to be set up.. I believe setting up OCM is one of the most challenging things.  One of the first steps is to create a spreadsheet with the configuration information.. Following this is the steps from the documentation.  The one complaint I would state is that a lot of the information for the OCM configuration is the same information provided to the "one" script.  I am hoping down the road the ACS group (or whoever does the configuration), also configures OCM, or at least provides the input for it.  OCM isn't necessary, but I think having it configured will save a lot of time when we need to open up an SR.



From the manual......

**************************************************************

Use your favorite spreadsheet editor to create the input csv file. To facilitate the use of the input

file, the Mass Deployment document contains a template for you to use in providing the field
values (ocm_companion/distributions/ocm/md/sample_input.csv). See Section 2.4.5 “Input File”
in Mass Deployment documentation for details on the input file format.


Much of the information required as input into Mass Deployment can be retrieved from the
Exadata Database Machine configuration worksheets. Please see Appendix A for examples.


1. Copy/rename the sample_input.csv file (e.g., getinfo_exadata_csi_input.csv). This file
can be used as a template for entering the data for each host on which OCM will be
deployed and/or configured. Add information for all the compute nodes as listed below.


a. Action: Set this column to “get_info” to retrieve information about the state of the
OCM collector in all the Exadata Database (compute node) Oracle homes.


b. Host-Name: Host name of the node.


c. Host-User: OS user that owns the Oracle home.


d. Host-Password: Password for the OS user - set to “__PROMPT__” (two
underscores before and after). See Section 2.4.4 Credential s in the Mass
Deployment Documentation or Appendix B of this document for secure ways of
providing the password. If the same credentials are being used for multiple
hosts, another option is to use a password group name in the password.csv file
as described in Section 2.4.1 of the Oracle Configuration Manager Companion
Distribution Guide .


e. Oracle Home: Oracle Database home location.

f. Db SID: Set the Database SID for the last database host in the input file. This is
required for Mass Deployment to instrument the database for configuration data
collections. This script need only be run on one of the database hosts, but must
be run after the last server is installed.


g. DB Type: Set to 'db' for the last database host in the input file.Specify only for
Install and Instrumentation actions.


h. ML-User: Enter the customer's MOS Account username (email address).


i. ML-CSI: This field holds the Exadata Hardware Customer Support Identifier
(CSI) an can be used in conjunction with the ML-User field to authenticate OCM
uploads. If the CSI is not know, see Appendix B.


j. ML-Pwd: Leave it as blank (should only be used if the CSI is not known).


k. DB-user: Database username required to instrument the database.


l. DB-Pwd: Database user password

Grid control 12c

I've been spending my week playing with Grid Control 12c. I know it has only been out just over a week, but I was very excited to see if it is that much better than grid 11g. My company is currently rolling out Grid 11g, and I wanted to see if we should be pushing for grid 12c right on it's heels.

I am extremely impressed with this product, so much so that I set up a virtual environment with Grid 12c to check it out.


I've spent the last couple of days getting my exadata configured in grid 12c. After a couple of false starts (and reinstalling of the agent) I finally got it up and running. These are my lessons learned

• First discover your database nodes, and make sure the name you use is the default fully qualified name.
• Add the database machine as a target, and make sure you have all the passwords including the nm2user on the IB switches (password is changeme), and you also need the id and password for the PDU (admin/admin).

Once you get these all set, Grid 12c will recognize your machine, and you will see wonderous things. Here are 2 example screens from an exadata..

The first one shows the IB traffic through the switch,

The second one shows the combined load on the Storage cells.

Even if you don't have an exadata, here is my favorite ASH analytics. Notice the timeframe is very small.

It is definately worth checking out.

10 x 10=100. Larryisnm's from oow11

I wanted to put down my impressions on the big announcements at openworld this year. First is Exalytics.. Analyitics at the speed of throught. This is an intriguing product, and I can definately see the uses for applications where real time analytics is key. I think for most of us, this appliance is going to be out of our range. I know I don't know of any business cases. No prices was mentioned either. Second was EM grid 12c. Now this was pretty impressive. I was surprised on all the enhancements that was put into it. It really seems to do a nice job of centralized for Cloud support. I was especially impressed with the virtualization pieces. The provisioning, and support of virtual environments is a great component. It is also a very big carrot for those companies turning to virtualization, and aren't sure whether to choose VMware or Oracle VM. Big Data Appliance. - This one I am waiting to see more specs on. it looks interesting, but what is the licensing model ? I can't believe that there is no software licensing (other than OS pieces). All these are interesting announcments, but I think the 12c features was the most interesting to me. IF only the documentation was available I would install it right now.

partitioning Local vs Global

In my last post I talked about creating a function based index on a GTT after my query plans went to hell after partitioning.  Someone asked me to elaborate why my query plans went south.

Well to start with, I deal with very large tables.. Not terribly large (250g 2 billion rows).  We are in the processess of partitioning this data, so we can purge it.. The performance on the data is very good, but we keep eating up disk space.

Seems simple enough right ? partition by date ranges, with some hash partitions thrown in on the column used the most for lookups.  Nice and neat. At this point we have 116 partitions.  Smaller is better right.

Since the whole reason for doing this is being able to purge, we created local indexes on almost all the columns except for the primary key.  Being able to maintain the partitions is critical.

Doing all this I assumed we would be OK with local indexes. The application does index lookups, and the ones that don't use the primary key (or the hash partitioned key) are close to unique.

How long can a lookup take with an index and number of distict values = num_rows.  Easy..

Then the dbreplay came, and the queries were slower.. much slower.. plan was similar but buffer gets was off.

% Total Gets Gets per Exec #Executions Exec Time (ms) per Exec CPU Time (ms) per Exec I/O Time (ms) per Exec Physical Reads per Exec #Rows Processed per Exec #Plans   
SQL Id 1st 1st Total 2nd 2nd Total Diff 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st/2nd/Both SQL Text 
d76xhcfh5dsrs 0.71 1.42 25.46 50.96 24.75 12,401.18 875,159.54 2,389 2,518 347 2,819 135 2,130 203 351 23.43 82.44 9.34 9.48 1/ 1/ 2 SELECT vpcyd_wrkr_id, vpcyd_cl... 
.

It's hard to see above, but the 2 critical values are 12,401 buffer gets vs 875,159 buffer gets.. and 347 ms/exec vs 2,819 ms/exex

Buffer gets was making a huge difference with my partitioned tables.. Now to dig into the trace file.

Here is the part that really stood out..147,157 cr (buffer block reads), to get 54 rows of data.. wow..

       545        545        545                     PARTITION RANGE ALL PARTITION: 1 29 (cr=147157 pr=19 pw=0 time=1142973 us cost=232 size=0 card=1)
       545        545        545                      PARTITION HASH ALL PARTITION: 1 4 (cr=147157 pr=19 pw=0 time=1126073 us cost=232 size=0 card=1)
       545        545        545                       INDEX RANGE SCAN PIDX_CUST_ID PARTITION: 1 116 (cr=147157 pr=19 pw=0 time=1032020 us cost=232 size=0 card=

I isolated this lookup, and found that it was a "unique" key (it had no duplicate values).. Why would 545 rows of data take all that time? (this was where the time was going).

I created a small query, and did a index lookup for one row and compared partitioned vs non-partitioned.

                SQL_ID       PLAN_HASH_VALUE BUFFER_GETS EXECUTIONS CPU_TIME ELAPSED_TIME AVG_HARD_PARSE_TIME APPLICATION_WAIT_TIME CONCURRENCY_WAIT_TIME 
Partitioned     gz67xt981w53p  3,540,849,128       7,323          6  472,928      642,455  625,819       0 168,862 
Non-Partitioned gz67xt981w53p    791,655,517          32          6    3,999        4,473    2,847       0 0 


 

Comparing the index partitioned vs non-partitioned, (with 116 subpartitions), you can see the difference. 3,999 ms vs 472,928 ms .  What caused me the biggest issue is that I didn't realize it was doing a nested loop, 54 times.. this made the difference 36,000 ms vs 4,256,352 ms.  116x longer with a local partion vs global. 

Lesson learned was that with partitioning you need to balance performance with maintainability.. Local indexes can be very expensive.  Especially with nested loops.