HP PolyServe Software User Manual
PolyServe MxS Oracle Database
Solution Pack Advanced I/O
Monitoring User’s Guide
February 2004
Copyright © 2004 PolyServe, Inc.
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Contents
Advanced I/O Monitoring
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
MxODM I/O Monitoring: Features at a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Core Reporting Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Reporting Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Special Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
MxODM I/O Monitoring: Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
MxODM I/O Monitoring: Practical Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Example 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Example 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Example 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
Example 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
Example 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Example 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
iii
Advanced I/O Monitoring
Introduction
Oracle Database Administrators routinely include operating-system level
performance monitoring tools such as vmstat(8) and iostat(1) in their tuning
efforts. Combining Oracle-provided monitoring tools with these operatingsystem tools is usually sufficient in SMP environments hosting single, or very few,
database instances.
With the advent of Real Application Clusters (RAC) and powerful Intel-based
clustered servers, DBAs need I/O performance monitoring tools that are more
“cluster-aware.” With RAC, it is common to find large numbers of clustered
nodes hosting several different databases, each with several different instances
running on the various nodes—all sharing the Storage Area Network.
The thought of monitoring I/O performance of a many-database, many-instance,
many-node clustered environment is rightfully troublesome. Indeed, equipped
with only Oracle Enterprise Manager, Statspack, and GV$ tables and aided by
node-local I/O stats, today's DBAs are lacking for information. I/O information is
important in real-time, not only in periodic reports. Moreover, reports can be
overwhelming. Consider the fact that an 8-node cluster with six instances
accessing the
require eight separate Statspack reports to monitor fully.
PROD database and two instances accessing the DEV database will
While Statspack reports provide invaluable information, they are not sufficient to
monitor the real-time activity of several instances throughout a cluster. Although
GV$tables and Oracle Enterprise Manager help to round out the performance
monitoring stack from Oracle, there is much information missing in a clustered
environment.
1
Advanced I/O Monitoring 2
The PolyServe MxS Oracle Database Solution Pack (MxODM) with the
mxodmstat(8) command is the perfect compliment to the performance
monitoring tools provided by Oracle Corporation.
MxODM I/O Monitoring: Features at a Glance
PolyServe has implemented the Oracle Disk Manager specification in the
MxODM product. Not only is MxODM a complete implementation of the ODM
specification with such features as asynchronous I/O, cluster keys, and atomic file
creation, it also contains a powerful advanced I/O performance monitoring
infrastructure that accumulates very rich, informative I/O statistics.
While typical system-level I/O tools such as iostat offer little more data than the
count of device read and write operations, blocks read and written, and response
times, MxODM offers information the DBA needs. In today's complex clustered
environments, information is much more valuable than raw data when it comes
to performance monitoring.
Core Reporting Elements
The MxODM I/O monitoring package provides the following basic I/O
performance information. These reported items are referred to as the Core
Reporting Elements:
• Number of File Read and Write Operations
• Read and Write throughput per second in Kilobytes
• Count of synchronous and asynchronous I/O operations
•I/O service times
•Percentages
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