Oracle stop development on itanium

[Duncan Edmonstone]

So referring back to my post dated Mar 25, 2011 16:46:52, I said:

> You see if Oracle finds this business practice works, you can bet they do it again... I doubt they would actually drop support for Oracle on Linux/x86, but I can forsee something like:
>
> i) Increase Oracle core factor for x86 cores from 0.5 to 1.0
>
> ii) If you want to run Oracle on anything other than Solaris/SPARC or OEL/x86 on Oracle Tin, then your support costs are 2x because "we don't control the stack"

It would seem that my prophecy there is already showing signs of coming true. For those with Oracle Support/Metalink access running Oracle on Linux I suggest you read article 1089399.1. I can't post the content here, but the gist of it is, no support for ASMlib on the RHEL6 kernel... you must run the Oracle Linux kernel...

A sign of things to come??

Again, my opinion only - not those of my employer...

HTH

Duncan

[Alzhy]

Duncan,

ASMlib -- yes - it seems no more updates for RHEL 6 and derivatives.

But what is ASMLib anyway? What is its value?

It is simply just a "nice" added layer between ASM and the Storage Stack of linux -- so multipathed disk devices can be pre-allocated, ownerships and headers (block ids) pre-set to be "ASM-ready". It also makes management easy as regardless of how the disk devices come up named -- it will always have a "name" in the eyes of ASM.

My view (and perhaps a growing number as well) is - it is really not needed any more.

Why?

There's UDEV rules where one can name disks friendlier and set ownerships.

But unbeknownst to most, device mapper multipath now offers the option to custom name multipathed disks as well as set ownership as well as access mode -- negating the need for ASMLib and UDEV so the dik devices can be straight used under ASM via "ASM_DIsksring" in ASM.

For example, in /etc/multipath.conf - a Linux Admin can merely set :

multipath {
wwid 3600508b40006a5d50000f00001160000
alias SAP_ASM_disk01
mode 0644
uid 501
gid 501
}


after presenting the SAN disk and ging through online disk presentation commands (multipath -v2, multipath -ll) -- there will be a disk entry named:

/dev/mapper/SAP_ASM_disk01

and ready to be partitioned (always a best practice to parition wholly) and utilized in ASM (via ASM_DISKSTING "/dev/mapper/SAP_ASM_disk*") as

/dev/mapper/SAP_ASM_disk01p1

So there you go -- no need for ASMLib. Unless there are other "performance/efficiency related rationale that Oracle will disclose" for ASMLib that others seem to unsuccessfully prove.

Note the above scheme augurs well for RAC and cluster environments as well -- easier naming of Oracle disks and less complex I may add.


Cheers!

[Alzhy]

In simplistic terms:

ASMlib allows for easy identification of disks used by Oracle ASM.

Simply doing a "blkid" will identify all disks that are marked as ASM used.

Without ASMlib, you'll have no INSTANT way of finding out which disks are under Oracle ASM control.

The above suggested standard however can be in lieue OF ASMLib -- which again people are finding out is NOT REALLY a key ingredient for a successful Oracle on Linux deployment.

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Alzhy,

I think you missed my point - I'm not particularly interested in the value of ASMlib or otherwise, it was there to illustrate that Oracle are already starting to differentiate what they offer on Oracle Linux vs. RedHat or SUSE Linux.

How long before this extends to other components? Initially I could see it being other kernel modules, like those in the RAC hangcheck timer or the ACFS kernel modules
(RedHat have even handed Oracle an 'excuse' to do this with their code obfuscation).

This is one case where TBH I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, but right now I don't see how "OracleDB on non-Oracle Linux/x86" is significantly "safe" as a long term platform from Larry Ellison's standard wallet gouging tactics...

Again - my opinions only.

Duncan

[rariasn]

Hi:

HP Superdome customers are facing costly "forklift upgrades" when upgrading from dead-end PA-RISC and Itanium processors and HP-UX.


http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/cash-for-clunkers-295403.html

rgs,

[Wim Rombauts]

Rariasn,

Have you done any effort to effectively compare the price (and performance) of these Solaris systems with the latest HP-UX systems ?
This type of talk is allways done between vendors. It's always a huge performance benifit if you upgrade a 5 year old system to whatever new hardware, for a fraction of the support price of the old system.

[Prokopets]

Rariasn: two years ago i worked in one company that was an Oracle's partner. So, i can say that discounts on M-series servers were at least 65-70%. As i can see - Larry is _very_ greedy.

Regards,
Philipp.

[Alzhy]

Dunc..

I don't think Larry O will not be that shrewed to lock out all Non Oracle Linux environments our of future versions of the Oracle mega stack specially its RDBMS. They make a LOT of money on RHEL Oracle deployments but I hear ya good sir. Besides - even if Oracle Linux is now an independent "fork" of RHEL having jumped the gun on RHEL 6.0 --OEL (which is still a downstream of RHEL 5) is still officially supported. RHEL 6.X is I thought a gentle reaction to Oracle's agressive fork and the kernel version there is now just a tad below Linus' releases.

Soon I think RHEL 6.X will be current for THOSE adventurers who wish to dabble in the latest and greatet Linux kernel tweaks in 2.6.38 -- which includes the Google TCP/IP Stack, VFS and the supposedly DB accelerating process agrregating processes, BATMAN and "transparent huge pages" -- deep changes that will wring the last ounces of performance of the upcoming 16-core Bulldozers from AMD and the Sandy Bridge Xeons from INTEL.

The explanation above for ASMLib's demise in RHEL 6 is to appease FUDs about those ASMlib dependent shops - re: the picture with ASM sir.

Cheers everyone.. not all is lost for Itanium though -- there's still Ingress/Informix, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, PostGress/EnterpriseDB, SAP, SAS, MicroFocus -- so unless they join the Itanium-away bandwagon -- better think about your next technology refresh.

[tungnt]

I'm using HP PA-RISC with Oracle DB. This time i'm preparing move my system to Itanium.
But now, i have to change my mind. I'm wavering between using Sun, IBM with oracle and using x86 with Oracle RAC.
So pls give me some advices.

[Andrey Chipalyuk]

Alzhy,

My experience show me that Linux is still difficult for using and have not enough quality documentations.
For example, typically business task. I want dynamically to add the disk drive into system.

HP-UX:

# ioscan -fnNC disk

And it is all!!!

Linux:

If we use the HP ProLiant servers:

# hp_rescan -a

For other vendors, for example (sometimes donâ t works):

# echo "- - -" >/sys/class/scsi_host/host{N}/scan

Or

# ql-dynamic-tgt-lun-disc.sh (Script file used to scan the QLogic)

Or

# rescan-scsi-bus.sh

Then I must change settings of multipath-tools (multipath.conf).
For Qlogic driver I must disable failover settings.

ql2xfailover=0

I must change some other settings for Qlogic driver or Emulex.
I must do:

# multipath

And I must verify:

# multipath -ll

And it not all!!!
Russian slang call this is haemorrhoids.