Sizing servers for Oracle Products

[Andrew Moody_1]

I'm looking at putting forward some suggestions to update our current hardware and wanted opinions.

Is it worth getting involved with the HP sales guy and his Oracle sizing spread sheet or as we already have servers in place that I know work, would you just upgrade based on the existing specifications.

My gut feeling is to follow both paths and then try and find some common ground from which to make recommendations/decisions, but I'd be interested in your thoughts and experience.

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi Andrew,

Depending on how much you know your own system, you may choose either path.

If you are experience enough, you should be your own judge. There is also the Product types that should be considered.

For example, for your database part, it would be talking more about disk space growth

when it comes to the Application server products, depending on the utilisation level, you would think about more CPU.

If you have your measureware reports, this can also guide you on the daily DISK/CPU/MEMORY utilisation.. and act upon it accordingly.

just some quick thoughts...

am sure you will get lots of other replies too

good luck!

kind regards
yogeeraj

[Peter Godron]

Andrew,
if you already have servers that do the job, I would use them as a baseline, unless mainteneance costs/future growth prevents it.

Gather some performance stats on your servers and estimate allowable growth. Then cover yourself by getting a manager to look at the figures and authorise your plan.

[Andrew Moody_1]

Thanks Yogeeraj

For all the servers internal storage really isn't an issue as we use EVA's for most of our storage.

[Andrew Moody_1]

Cheers Peter, that's my gut feeling at the moment, however I'm aware that our account managers with Oracle and HP may have another line into us that I want to have neutralised before they show up.

I've got N class and L class servers with 4 PA-8700 processors that to me seem massively overspecced for what they do. I don't see why a job being done by 4 PA-8700 processors and 8-12GB Ram can't be done equally as well by a 3440 with 2 or 3 PA-8900 processors with similar RAM. That would then allow me to release older N and L class machines to upgrade the development environment so I keep all my users happy at minimum cost.

But as I've been doing this barely 6 months I wanted a non-vested interest peer review of my idea's before I argue my case to various vested interest and budget managers.

[Vipulinux]

Hi
Check this interesting discussion:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.databases.oracle.server/browse_thread/thread/6b30ced33bb24168/996f9393ed8532de?lnk=st&q=Hardware+sizing+HP+UX+for+oracle&rnum=2&hl=en#996f9393ed8532de

Cheers

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Andrew,

I've always found Oracle to be much more I/O intensive than CPU.
Therefore you should also take a long, hard look at upgrading I/O more than CPU.
A 3440 would be plenty if Ns & Ls are doing it now. But spend plenty of time at looking at pure I/O speed - like more paths or moving to 2GB fibre speeds. So if you think you'll want more HBA paths to the SAN keep in mind the PCI slot limitations of the rp3440 - you may want to consider an rp 4440 solely for it's higher PCI slot count.
Also, if you're not Gig-E now & have a high client count - then move to Gig-E, while you have the chance.
Memory requirements won't change so just match them with current usages.

My 2 cents,
Jeff

[renarios]

Hi Andrew,

I just upgraded the production servers from Oracle 8i (8.1.7.4) to 9i (9.2.0.7) and had to upgrade our internal memory. Oracle 9i consumes more memory to perform the same.
With Oracle 10g I had the same issues on the preproduction systems. At our site, CPU power was not the issue. Increasing the internal memory helped us out.

Cheers,

Renariso

[Andrew Moody_1]

Jeff, we are running dual 2GB fiber to SAN and 1000Mbps ethernet so we are ok there I think. I could always get Dual Hba's to take account of the PCI card count, but you've hit on the one aspect that I can see so far of justifying the larger form factor machines, PCI slot count.

Renarios - Oracle products current running 11.5.8 moving to 11.5.10 currently. I've no idea how this dovetails with your experience as I'm no DBA.....

[Raju Joseph (PDI)]

When you move from 11.5.8 to 11.5.10, make provision for at least 15% increase in internal memory and swap space.
Oracle 8i vs 9i vs 10g, it takes a significant amount of memory unless you trim down the install to the very minimum needed features.
--Raju