local disk versus SAN

[sheevm]

Hi All,

I would like some comments on putting the application binaries on local disk that has OS versus SAN. Which is the prefered method and best practices?

Thanks
Rajim

[DCE]

Best practice is that the OS disk is just that - for OS only.

all application binaries/data should be store in a seperate VG.

The really makes sense when you start using ignite to make recovery images of your system.

[sheevm]

Thanks.

My question is really application binaries installation on local disks versus installing on SAN disks. Any comments and/or tips would be helpful.

Thanks
Rajim

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Rajim,

My question is really application binaries installation on local disks versus installing on SAN disks. Any comments and/or tips would be helpful.
>>
There is a preference to boot off local disk because its more familiar and because its useful to be able to boot even when the SAN is missing. Diagnosis is possible and such.

No such preference for binary. Obviously recovering from a SAN failure is easier if the binaries are on local disk. There is no performance or security advantage from local disk.

In essence you install binaries where you have the space. Some of the binaries requirements for Oracle from example can quickly exceed local disk.

If you intend to cluster an application it is convenient to have the binaries on shared storage (SAN). This prevents you from having to maintain two copies of binaries or configurations.

Notice the word I used throughout, convenience, not necessity.

SEP

[NMory]

Rajim:

What do you mean by application binaries?...

I am just going to give you some things I would care about in order to make that decision...
My recommendation would be to mind the size of the files, the way the data is stored in the disks (is set to best performance possible), your data redundancy (internal and in the SAN), the speed of your SAN, how congested is your SAN, the speed and size of your disks compared to the SAN's, the performance of the system (has bottlenecks?), how saturated is your storage enclosure?...
If the files will be available to other servers it woould be better to put the files in a SAN, but if it's only internal to the server, the best thing would be to stored them in the server, but not on the disks where the OS reside....
Well, that's some of the many things I would mind.

LN

[freddy_21]

Binary your application can put at internal disk, but you must think, about i/o load.

If your binary consuming I/O, I suggest to create at external disk. that's make your OS not have I/O problem with your binary application.

All configuration depend on your application.

Thanks
freddy

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi rajim,

in all cases, we would like our files (both data and application) to be on the fastest disks on the system.

then there is also the issue of availability and recoverability in cases of failures of several kinds.


if you have to make a compromise, in case of constraints on the amount of disk available, you would then prefer to move the application binaries to the slower disks. Again, it depends on the type of application systems.

Not as straight-forward a solution i guess...

hope this helps

kind regards
yogeeraj

[BPatrick]

I feel it would be better to have the application binaries on the local disk than having it on SAN as it "might" cause performance issues.
And why would you need the advantages of the costlier SAN for the application binaries? You will ofcourse be having backup copies of your binaries so why need additional prtection and availability for the binaries.


Patrick