Ignite VG00 or Cold Install?

[Robb Bailey]

I am rebuilding a K200 that currently has vg00 comprised of (1) 4GB and (2) 2GB disks. I am replacing these three disks with (2) 4GB drives. I do have an ignite tape that I was hoping to use. I am also replacing every other disk in the box. The box also has an OS version from Dec. 1999. With all of the changes, am I just better off doing a cold install and starting from scratch? If not, how do I "reassign" everything to the new disks? I am sorry if this is vague. I did look through the archives and what I did read assumed similar hardware, not full-scale changes.

This box will become an Oracle test box/oracle hot standby. Our DBA has floated the idea of creating vg00 and swap, the making one giant partition of the rest of the disks (8) 18GB, raid, hot spare. Is this reasonable?

I greatly appreciate all responses.

Thank you,

Robb Bailey

[Wilfred Chau_1]

I would use an ignite tape instead of doing everything over again. As long as the hardware are the same. It may give you errors for the missing 2x 2G disk, I think it will give you an option to pick a disk from the existing. Make sure all you need are on the tape. You can do the following to check:

# mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
# tar tvf /dev/rmt/0m

[Patrick Wallek]

For your VG00, I would recommend using Ignite/UX. If your system is running without any problems, I see no real reason to upset that. When you create your Ignite tape do:

# /opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -a /dev/rmt/?mn -I -v -x inc_entire=vg00

The '-I' option will tell ignite to come up in the interactive menu when you boot from the tape. At this point you can select which disk you wish to install the OS on and change your LVOL sizes if you wish. Note that if you had your VG00 mirrored, you will have to redo this manually once you finish ignite'ing the machine.

Once you have your OS on the new disks, you can install your new data disks, create your VGs and restore your data.

You could make your 8 x 18GB disks into one giant LVOL, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Oracle recommends data files and redo logs on different spindles. You could create a big LV on 6 of the 8 disks for your data files and then another LV on the other 2 disks for your other stuff. That's just me though.

[Michael Tully]

Regardless of the state of the hardware or patches you could create an interactive ignite tape to do the work for you.
Load the latest ignite software from here: http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/download.html
Ignite is independent to any other patches. The latest versions also allow you to do a clone of a different class of system, Look for the 4.x version from the link I gave you.

Change your disk drives.
Boot off the tape drive, and you can make all the necessary changes in the interactive menus, just like doing a fresh install.
Here's how to cut the tape from your production server.

# make_tape_recovery -x inc_entire=vg00 -I -v -a /dev/rmt/0mn

Good luck
Michael

[Jeff Schussele]

I'd add to Patrick's post:

1) Make TWO tapes. A bad tape can make for a long day.

2) Apply current patch bundles immediately after the Ignite restore & prior to releasing the system to make sure you're up to date

3) DON'T let the DBA talk you into 1 huge VG. Break it up such that data, indices, logs & archives are seperate. Generally, data & indices can perform better if the FS mount options are tuned different from logs & archives. And conversely logs & archs will perform much slower with those same FS options you'd apply to data & indices.

Search the forum for Oracle performance & you'll find ton's of hits & a lot of good advice.

Good Luck,
Jeff

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi Robb,

If this thread gets another 100 responses, 90 of them will suggest you to use ignite tape. Make sure you have the latest ignite version installed and use make_tape_recovery. Once the tape is taken successfully, preserve the old boot disk for plan B. Rearrange the disks in whatever the fashion you want and use the recovery tape to recover the image. Interact with the session so that it will not pick up the default disks. Good thing about it is, if you had OS on 4 disks and if you want to install on one big disks, you can do it.

About the OS being of 99, if you regularly patch your OS and update your drivers, you should be ok. Cold-installing is not bad if it is ok with you to spend time in fixing the broken links.

You know how to recover rest of the data.

-Sri

[monasingh_1 · Accepted solution]

Well, I agree with all previous posts about using ignite.

But,
Since this sever is going to be a new oracle test / hot standby, I would rather load the new OS, latest gold base patch bundle, latest gold application patch bundle and then install oracle. I would also check the oracle version for any specific pathes it needs.

The reason I say that is that since you do not seem to be much concerned with the existing data. And in case your currnet server has some residual extra stuff on it, will get transfered as well with ignite.

I would get all codewords from HP in advance, get all the CDs , get all the patches and patch bundle, network config, required NEW vg config and reintall from scratch. I would load OS on one 4GB and other I would use for mirror(if ou have mirror/UX.

And of course create separae VG for oracle use. Never ever any appication/software like oracle in VG00 unless absolutely required(that situation I have not come across yet though)..

And after installation I would use ignite to save the new server's VG00 archive.

Hope this helps.

[Michael Tully]

One thing I would think about is actually how you would get to your data from the hot machine. How did you intend to do this? If the disks your using are in a separate external enclosure, you'll need to make sure that if it is SCSI attached, that you use the same type of SCSI attachment, in this case the K class being HVD.