Dell SC8000 User Manual
Wendy Chen and Tom Dau
Database Solutions Engineering
Dell Product Group
October 2012
Optimizing an Oracle® Database with
Dell™ Compellent™ Automated Tiered
Storage
Implementation Best Practices of Dell™ Compellent™ Data Progression
with Oracle® OLTP workloads
Optimizing an Oracle Database with Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
This document is for informational purposes only and may contain typographical errors and
technical inaccuracies. The content is provided as is, without express or implied warranties of any
kind.
© 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell and its affiliates cannot be responsible for errors or omissions
in typography or photography. Dell, the Dell logo, Compellent, PowerConnect, and PowerEdge are
trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and
other countries. Oracle is a registered trademark of the Oracle Corporation. Brocade is a registered
trademark of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. Microsoft, Windows, and Windows Server are
either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other
countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the
entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the
marks and names of others.
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Optimizing an Oracle Database with Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
October 2012| Rev 2.0
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the following people for their contribution during the development and
review of this whitepaper:
Connie Sheldon
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Optimizing an Oracle Database with Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
Contents
Executive summary ....................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 3
Dell solutions for Oracle database ..................................................................................... 4
Technology overview ..................................................................................................... 5
Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage – Data Progression ................................................ 5
Dell 12th Generation PowerEdge Servers ........................................................................... 7
Oracle Databases with Dell Compellent Data Progression ......................................................... 8
Test tools and configurations ........................................................................................... 8
Baseline configuration without Data Progression ............................................................... 10
Enabling Data Progression and simulating read-only workload ............................................... 12
Tiered storage configuration with Data Progression ........................................................... 12
Test Results............................................................................................................... 14
Summary .................................................................................................................. 18
References ................................................................................................................ 18
Figures
Figure 1. Architecture of the tiered storage infrastructure .................................................... 3
Figure 2. Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage - Data Progression ................................... 6
Figure 3. Configuration architecture of Oracle RAC database and Dell Compellent storage system ... 9
Figure 4. Volume distribution of the baseline configuration without Data Progression ................. 11
Figure 5. Volume distribution of the tiered storage configuration created by Data Progression ...... 13
Figure 6. Oracle TPC-C Transaction per second (TPS) vs. user load ....................................... 15
Figure 7. Oracle TPC-C average response time (second) vs. user load ..................................... 16
Figure 8. Dell Compellent Data Progression reduces transaction response time of Oracle OLTP
workload ............................................................................................................ 17
Figure 9. Dell Compellent Data Progression improves application throughput in TPS of Oracle OLTP
workload ............................................................................................................ 18
Tables
Table 1. Hardware and software configurations for Benchmark factory test ............................ 10
Table 2. Oracle volume placement with Data Progression .................................................. 12
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Optimizing an Oracle Database with Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
Executive summary
Enterprise data can be categorized based on criteria such as performance needs, access frequencies,
I/O patterns, and business values. With the exponential data growth, the traditional “one size fits all”
data storage strategy of storing all data into a uniform storage media has become costly and less
efficient. To solve this challenge, many IT organizations have adopted the tiered storage solution.
Tiered storage is a data storage environment consisting of multiple storage media types forming
storage tiers. Storage tiers can differ in cost, performance and capacity. Tiered storage solution
enables the alignment of different categories of data to different storage tiers, with the goal of
reducing total storage cost and preserving performance. In this paper, we will examine the automated
tiered storage solution, Data Progression, offered by Dell Compellent storage systems. Data
Progression automatically moves data to the optimum storage tier and/or RAID level based on actual
use and performance needs. This paper describes how users can leverage Data Progression to optimize
Oracle database performance. It provides recommended best practices to implement Oracle databases
with Dell Compellent Data Progression.
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Optimizing an Oracle Database with Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
Introduction
Today’s storage devices come in many choices ranging from high performance and high cost storage
devices such as the flash memory-based Solid State Drives (SSD), to slower performance and less
expensive storage devices like the mechanical hard disk drives (HDD). While it would be ideal to store
all data in the high speed devices, it would be unnecessary and impractical given the different
categories of data, the high cost of the fast disk drives, and the exploded data growth.
Majority of enterprise data is less transactional and not frequently accessed. Transactional or
frequently changed data represents only a small percentage of the entire data storage. It is
cost effective to store only the frequently accessed data in the high performance storage
devices.
Pricing for the high performance storage devices such as SSDs is still higher than HDDs for
comparable storage capacity. It may be impractical to store all data on SSDs for many
customers.
The exponential data growth rate leads to the huge storage capacity requirement. As a result,
companies need to seek new ways to store data more efficiently and more cost effectively to
control the total storage cost. Storing all data in a single type of storage media cannot meet
the goal of reducing storage cost while preserving application performance at the same time.
The above factors lead to the increasing adoption of the tiered storage architecture (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Architecture of the tiered storage infrastructure
A tiered storage environment consists of two or more types of storage media with the fast and more
expensive disk devices forming the top tiers, and slower performance and lower cost storage devices
forming the lower tiers. Tiered storage aligns different categories of data to different storage tiers.
For example, mission-critical or frequently accessed data might be stored on the high performing SSD
drives in tier 1 or the SAS drives in tier 2; infrequently used data might be stored to the slower and less
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Optimizing an Oracle Database with Dell Compellent Automated Tiered Storage
expensive SATA drives in tier 3. However, assigning data to a particular storage tier may be an ongoing
and complex activity which may take a lot of time and effort from the administrators if it is done
manually. Automation is a must to support the tiered storage infrastructure. An automated storage
tiering solution can meet the right balance between performance and storage cost by dynamically
identifying and moving hot data to higher-performance storage tiers, while moving cold data to slower,
lower-cost storage tiers.
Many types of applications can benefit from the automated storage tiering solution. Among them, an
Oracle® database is a prime candidate.
Database storage space represents a large percentage of the overall data storage. Industry
research indicates that the average databases are growing at a double digit annual growth
rate. The driving forces of the rapid database growth rate can be contributed by the factors
such as the increased business demands, the regulatory and legal requirements resulted longer
data retention period, and the high availability requirements with duplicated copies of data,
etc. Managing and retaining the overall database storage usage imposes a big challenge on IT
organizations. The automated storage tiering solution can help address this challenge.
Storage needs for Oracle databases differ from one database to another. Oracle database I/O
workloads can be classified as Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), or Decision Support
System (DSS), or a mix of the two. OLTP workload is typically used by the transactional
processing applications represented with a small set of active data, which can benefit from
placing on the high-performance storage media. DSS applications are typically used by the
reporting and data analysis applications represented with a large set of older data that can be
stored in the high capacity and low cost storage media to reduce the storage cost.
Oracle databases also differ in terms of Service Level Agreement (SLA). Some databases are
mission critical while others are less important. IT organizations can take advantage of the
automated storage tiering solution to align databases to different storage tiers, in order to
minimize the storage cost while satisfying SLAs and meeting the expected performance level.
Furthermore, within an Oracle database, components have different I/O characteristics. For
example, online redo log files have high I/O demands. Indexes in OLTP type of databases are
typically I/O intensive comparing to other database objects. For DSS type of databases,
partitions of older data are usually less accessed. An automated storage tiering solution can
help place different components of an Oracle database to the most optimal storage tier.
Dell solutions for Oracle database
Dell solutions for Oracle products are designed to simplify operations, improve usability, and provide
cost-effective scalability as your needs grow over time. In addition to providing server and storage
hardware, Dell solutions for Oracle include:
Dell Configurations for Oracle―in-depth testing of Oracle configurations for high-demand
solutions; documentation and tools that help simplify deployment
Integrated Solution Management―standards-based management of Dell solutions for Oracle
that can lower operational costs through integrated hardware and software deployment,
monitoring, and updating
Oracle Licensing—licensing options that can simplify customer purchase
Dell Enterprise Support and Infrastructure Services for Oracle―planning, deployment, and
maintenance of Dell solutions for Oracle database tools
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