Re: ASM

  • From: kathy duret <katpopins21@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:00:57 -0700 (PDT)

ASM does take some getting used to that is for sure.
 
ASM is good for RAC and EBS (non RAC) as it gives you the performance close to 
RAW.
 
I like it better than Veritas clustered file system.
 
ASM is supposed to be easier to manage in 11G and fully integrated by 12G.  

I haven't played with it in 11G yet.  
 
K

--- On Thu, 10/16/08, Bradd Piontek <piontekdd@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Bradd Piontek <piontekdd@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: ASM
To: sacrophyte@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: "ORACLE-L" <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thursday, October 16, 2008, 11:44 AM



I should preface this by saying that I have 1) used oracle clusterware in a 
linux RAC environment (10.2.0.3) and 2) used Sun Cluster in a non-RAC, 
cold-failover (10.2.0.2) environment.

From what I've seen, Oracle Clusterware is rock solid and easy to use when it 
is managing the Oracle stack. I'm also fairly positive that in a Sun Cluster 
RAC (10g >) environment, you'd have to have Oracle Clusterware installed 
anyway.I find the Oracle Clusterware to be easy to install, configure and 
manage over time. I didn't find there was a huge learning curve (same goes for 
ASM *shrug*). The commands are very similar to other oracle command line 
utilities. I've done very little (other than training) on how to use Oracle 
Clusterware to manage non Oracle resources. While it is possible, and there are 
examples, I can't compare how much coding is required as compared to Generic 
SuN Cluster resources.

Sun Cluster is a different story. It does have some nice (add-on) agents you 
can get for Oracle Database resources (the cluster software is free, support is 
not). however, in our non-RAC, cold-failover environment, I don't like some of 
the limitation/constraints it imposes. The first being a separate listener for 
every database being managed. Probably just personal preference on my part to 
have one shared listener. If you are monitoring via Grid Control, installing 
agents gets to be a bit messy as you need one agent for each host in the 
cluster, and then an additional agent (which is a bit interesting to install) 
for each database resource in the cluster that can fail over. (again, this is 
non RAC). 

Bradd Piontek
  "Next to doing a good job yourself, 
        the greatest joy is in having someone 
        else do a first-class job under your  
        direction."
 -- William Feather



On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 10:58 AM, Charles Schultz <sacrophyte@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On the flip side, we like our SA's. However, we are lacking in clustered 
experience (in any group). We have read whitepapers from both Sun and Oracle 
saying that their cluster stack is better than the other. What about real world 
experiences? Has anyone used both and have a somewhat objective comparison?

Oracle certainly picked a controversial direction with ASM. =) I still do not 
understand how Oracle has provided a really cool with ASM that is horribly 
lacking in friendliness and versatility.





On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Bort, Guillermo <guillermo.bort@xxxxxxx> 
wrote:




<QUOTE>

 
Now against that, and in addition to Jared's points. I'd ask why consider a 
storage solution that only works for Oracle files (and even then not all Oracle 
files. I keep other files on my servers you know. Including stuff you'd expect 
to be there like alert.logs, cron scripts and so on. 
 
</QUOTE>
 
ASM is designed as a CLUSTER FILESYSTEM, that's why it only supports files that 
*need* to be shared across all nodes. Alerts, cronts, etc are 
instance-dependant, so you only need them in the local server. Also, if you 
want a 'traditional' cluster filesystem, you can always use OCFS, although I 
wouldn't recommend it to anyone I don't utterly hate… :P
 
I've had experiences with veritas cluster filesystem not working for RAC. 
Really, in 10g+ ASM is the best way to go… and in 9i RAC, I'd go with raw 
devices instead of any cluster filesystem.
 
I'm a DBA and I have little but contempt for SAs (the ones I personally know, 
anyway), so I don't really care that they don't like ASM… :P
 
I'd like ASM to work for OCR and VOTING, but that is a contradiction by design.
 
Regards
 
Guillermo Alan Bort
DBA / DBA Main Team
 
EDS, an HP company
 


 

 

 


-- 
Charles Schultz




      
  • References:

Other related posts: