Oracle Database Quick Reference
Quick References: Best Practices
Configuring an Oracle database on Pure Storage cannot be any simpler as the below storage level factors are neither relevant nor significant on Pure Storage FlashArray due to flash's unique capabilities and Purity Operating environment's design.
| Factors | Relevancy | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe Width and Depth | Automatic | Purity Operating environment automatically distributes data across all drives in the array. |
| RAID Level | Automatic | Pure Storage uses RAID-HA, designed specifically to protect against the 3 failure modes specific to flash storage: device failure, bit errors, and performance variability. |
| O.S & DB block size | No preferred size |
Pure Storage is based on a fine-grained 512 byte geometry and as such there are no block alignment issues and performance is completely independent of block size (both database and redo logs).
|
| ASM vs File System | Insignificant |
No significant performance benefit to using ASM over a traditional file system and can certainly be driven by your operational policies and guidelines. |
| Intelligent Data Placement | Insignificant | Purity operating environment has been designed from the ground up to take advantage of the flash's unique capabilities as they are not constrained by the disk paradigm anymore and as such "hot" and "cold" disk platter placements are not relevant. |
ASM/File System Specific Recommendations
In Pure Storage FlashArray, IOPS is not a function of LUN count. You get the same IOPS capacity with 1 LUN as you do with 100. Of course, it is convenient to monitor database performance by I/O type across data, log, and temp, we recommend creating separate ASM disk groups or file systems dedicated to these individual workloads.
ASM Specific Recommendations
Given that Pure Storage FlashArray includes RAID-HA protection, you can safely use External Redundancy for ASM diskgroups. Also as like the other storage factors that were discussed above, sector size and AU size do not have a significant bearing on performance.
| Disk Group | Sector Size | Stripe | AU size | Redundancy | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORACRS | 512 | COARSE | 1MB | External | Small disk group for CRS |
| ORADATA | 512 | COARSE | 1 MB | External | Database disk group |
| ORAREDO | 512 | COARSE | 1 MB | External | Redo logs |
| ORAFRA | 512 | COARSE | 1 MB | External | Flash Recovery Area |
Integration
- CommVault IntelliSnap for Oracle Databases on Pure Storage
- Catalogic ECX Integration with Pure Storage for Oracle Database
- Oracle FlashStack Design Document
Other Resources
In addition to the below whitepapers, the following resources might be interesting to you: