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
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
2 Oracle ASM and NetApp: Simplified Database Management, Performance, and Protection
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).
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.
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.
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
Flexible volumes that optimize I/O across all disks (storage), balance I/O ASM
Better
across disks in disk group (host) NetApp FlexVol
Flexible volumes that optimize I/O across all disks (storage), ASM
Best balance I/O across disks in disk group (host), and provide NetApp FlexVol
application prioritized I/O automatically for SLAs, etc. 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 Check for block corruption on backup (using RMAN, etc.)
and detection dbv can be run against online and backup database files
Active checking Oracle HARD: allows vendors to re-compute block checksums. Increase
Better
and detection latency for writes, as checksum is recomputed (typically < 5%)
Use NetApp SnapManager for Oracle for automated block level

Automated validation of backups
Best checking and
Use NetApp SnapValidator to eliminate corrupt block writes
detection
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.
# of Disks
RAID Level Failure Protection Performance Impact
(Cost Hit)
RAID-1 Multiple disks, except 2N 2x writes; none to add or reconstruct
(Mirroring) mirror pairs (N or 100%)
1 failed disk or XOR calculation on writes, data
RAID-5 uncorrectable disk N+1; N≈≈7 reconstructed and when disks added
(“RAID”) (hard) errors (1/N or 14%)
2 failed disks or XOR calculation on writes and when

RAID-6 1 failed disk and hard N+2; N≈≈14 data reconstructed;
(RAID-DP™) disk errors (2/N or 14%) none when adding disks
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 reconstruction 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 performance and low overhead, cannot

Good ASM or RAID-1 Mirroring
protect against failed mirror pair failure
Requires less capacity, cannot protect against

Better RAID-5 Parity
failure or errors on two disks
RAID-DP provides RAID-1 protection and

Best RAID-DP Double Parity
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 Can utilize Snapshot functionality
Writes all blocks to secondary store (e.g., tape) Operates using pointers, not blocks
Tool may have “incremental” feature to reduce the Consistent and fast backup times
physical I/O Consistent and fast restore times
Potential impact on host CPU resources Not Database size dependent
Potential impact on network resources No physical I/O required
May affect application availability Stores just changed blocks
Moves and stores all blocks: free, changed or unchanged No host CPU impact
Independent of Database layout 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 Need an exact point in time Snapshot copy across volumes or
within an ASM Disk Group 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 Requires renaming of ASM disk group
DB clones
Ability to restore a file “in-place” into a Requires a full understanding of how the ASM file-system is
Disk Group 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 No physical movement of data required
FlexClone 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 Allows cloned ASM disks to be added back to same ASM
for Oracle 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 Disk size, speed, IOPs, etc.
capability
Disk Group represents your Service Level FC 15K disks are “gold”
Objective ATA 7.5K disks are “bronze"
Choose the appropriate Disk Group based Log and Data files are on “gold”
on needs 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 Put static and dynamic data into their own
Utilize storage based backup and Disk Groups
restore Separate Logs and Data into their own Disk
Perform more frequent and Groups
faster backups Create consistent Snapshot copies across
Eliminate host CPU impact of Volumes and Storage Systems of ASM Disk
“hot backup” Groups
Time and Space efficient Restore files in place using Partial LUN
Restore
Reduction in Mean Time to Recovery
(MTTR) 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®
Brajesh Goyal and Ara Shakian

SnapManager for Oracle with Oracle Database 10g Grid
Eric Barrett, Bikash R. Choudhury, Bruce Clarke, Blaine McFadden, Tushar Patel, Ed Hsu,
Christopher Slater and Michael Tatum
Network Appliance Best Practice Guidelines for Oracle
© 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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Netapp Oracle Asm

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NETAPP TECHNICAL REPORT

ORACLE ® ASM AND NETAPP: SIMPLIFIED DATABASE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ORACLE AUTOMATIC STORAGE MANAGER

Figure 1) Automatic Storage Management (ASM).

NETAPP SNAPMANAGER ® FOR ORACLE

Figure 2) SnapManager integration with Oracle.

DATABASE SNAPSHOT COPIES

Figure 3) How storage Snapshot copies work.

ASM WITH FLEXCLONE COPIES

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

OPTIMIZING HOST I/O

OPTIMIZING STORAGE I/O

Figure 5) FlexVol automatically pools storage resources.

PRIORITIZING APPLICATION I/O

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

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

Use NetApp SnapManager for Oracle for automated block level

Figure 7) RAID-1 and RAID-5.

2 failed disks or XOR calculation on writes and when

How likely is data loss during a RAID reconstruction process?

Figure 8) Data loss during a RAID reconstruction process.

Good performance and low overhead, cannot

Requires less capacity, cannot protect against

RAID-DP provides RAID-1 protection and

Smaller maintenance windows Business moving to 24x7x365 operation

SLAs mandate short recovery times Smaller windows to restore Database

Online versus offline Offline backups simpler

RECOVERY AND RESTORE CONSIDERATIONS

Restore time depends on Amount of data to transfer

Recovery efficiency depends on Granularity that storage can recover

STORAGE UTILIZATION AND DATABASE PROTECTION

Figure 9) How free space is wasted.

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

BACKUP AND RECOVERY: ASM CHALLENGES

AUTOMATED AND EFFICIENT ASM CLONES

Table 9) ASM disk group cloning considerations.

DATA TIERING WITH ASM DISK GROUPS

Brajesh Goyal and Ara Shakian

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