Oracle & Bob Hope

[Mike Fisher_5]

Any general advice would be most welcome
I hope that my query isn't too vague

SITUATION AT THE MOMENT...
Client has a K-Box & 5 HASS enclosures
[6 x FW SCSI cintrollers & 38 Discs]
It's used exclusively for CONTROL (with ORACLE]
I understand that this is heavy on I/O
He's run out of Disc Space
He's concerned about I/O bottlenecks
He's short on cash !!

MY PROPOSAL...
rp5470 with
Dual 750 or 875MHz CPU's
[Oracle licence is ??25k per annum per CPU
2 CPU's is the most the client can afford]
MirrorDisk
2 x 2Gb FC adapters
FC10 enclosure with
2 x FC controllers
10 x 73Gb Discs

The above is the limit of his budget

The clients software guru is pushing for a VA7410
with 15 x 36Gb discs
He realises this is a pipe dream however
The guru comments
"The worry I have is that they will be going from 6 controllers to 2
& from 38 discs to 10...
& have software mirroring too,
which is both an I0/CPU overhead & they only have 10 discs & 2 controllers to mirror over"

MY QUESTION
I want to do right by our client
I must empathize that their budget is seriously constrained
Is there something I could offer that would give them more bang for their bucks?
Something that addresses the Guru's concerns too?

Cheers
Mike

BTW...
Bob is 100 today
What a trouper
Leslie Townes Hope
Born. Eltham, England
http://www.stripes.com/bobhope/text/bobhopetext.html
Thanks for the memory

[Pete Randall]

Mike,

If the client has an HP support contract, you can also take into account the support savings. Generally the new systems come with a 3 year warranty, so you eliminate support costs for 3 years. Makes the cost justification much easier.

However, since they are a client of yours, I suspect that "you" are their support contract?


Pete


Happy Birthday, Bob!!!

[Mike Fisher_5]

You've got it in 1 Pete
We're talking Motown - UK style - no dosh
We do the support

Hope [oops] y'all enjoy the link
Moving

[S.K. Chan]

Quick comment .. the way I look at it, the number of controllers and the number of disks does not accurately represent the the speed of the IO. Nowadays with a huge single disk capacity, you can really have more disks. What's important is the specs on the disk, make sure they are of highest speed (rpm) you can find. As for the controllers you got a fiber channel and that's way faster than the fwscsi. Take into account the internal bus speed as well. You can easily find out the numbers for these specification and with that facts and details, they should give you some ammo to address the concerns.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Mike,

How many CPUs are in the K-class now? Bet it's more than 2.
Seems to me if they REMOVE Oracle from the K when they install on the RP5470, then the CPU count will go down & the Oracle license costs *should* go down as well.
Why would they need to purchase new licenses when they already have them?
They should just have to relicense at most, I'd think.
Just thinking out loud....

Rgds,
Jeff

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

First of all, 2 FC SCSI controllers will blow the doors off 6 FWD SCSI controllers.

Secondly, my experience (and measurements) have been that while on 10.20 and 11.0 bypassing the buffer cache with convosync=direct,mincache=direct gives the best performance for datafiles and indices, in the 11.11 world, using "cooked" files for everything with fairly large buffer cache (800-1200MB) does significantly better. The larger buffer cache also helps to alleviate i/o bottlenecks.

I have no doubt that the proposed hardware will blow the doors off the old K-box and JBOD's but the real question is can you do better?

I'll just throw out some ideas in no particular order?

1) How you thought about only 1 CPU? Databases typically are not CPU bound but rather I/O bound. You might find that 1 CPU while instantly reducing Oracle costs might come with a very small performance penalty. The savings could then be applied to a VA.

2) Buy lots of 3rd party memory. In the US, for example, Kingston is literally a factor of 10 cheaper - and memory will be your single most important performance boost - other than the SQL code itself.

3) Search the used-euipment market. Almost new HP equipment (available for HP maintenance) can be purchased at some amazingly low prices now. You might for example be able to afford 2 VA7100's on the used market.

------------------------------

Now having said all this, nothing will disappoint a customer more than buying his "dream" system and finding out that all he's really done is bought more disk space. Maybe his filespace problems are solved but he was expecting (based upon the raw hardware performance numbers) a 5x increase in throughput. The "dream" system might only deliver a 1.2x increase. You need to know where the bottlenecks currently are so that meaningful and realistic expectations can be presented. In more than one case, I have found that a single index improved much more than all the hardware upgrades and tuning combined.

[Mike Fisher_5]

Jeff

You keep thinking out loud - fine with me

K = 2 x CPU's
Guru wants 4 x 875MHz CPU's
Client will not wear an ADDITIONAL ??50k just for licences
I've got to work with 2 x CPU's unfortunately

ANOTHER QUESTION/THOUGHT
If I supplied 2 x FC10's with
20 x 36Gb Discs...
Price is roughly the same
Availability increases [I think]
More spindles
I/O becomes worse

Right?

[Steven E. Protter]

The new boxes will pay for themselves with reduced support costs in about 4 years, based on my experience.

I think your proposal is great.

SEP

[Mike Fisher_5]

SK & SEP:
Thanks

A Clay:
Your CPU thought is a good one
Also [from my POV] it's counter-intuitive which I love
I can do something with that
Also appreciate your 1.2 comment

Any more for anymore?

Mike "I may be lying in the gutter, but I'm looking at the stars" Fisher

[Chris Vail]

I agree that your proposal represents the most "bang for the buck" for your client. There are one or two places you can save money, however.

Seriously search the used/refurb market. Any of us here can refer you to their favorite vendor(s). Mine is in San Antonio, Texas but does 90+% of his sales in Europe and the Pacific Rim. Refurb prices are half or less what the new prices are, and there's little or no difference in service level.

We just purchased a "refurb" FC10 that had never actually been opened and used. It was returned when a dot-com failed and couldn't pay the bill. HP couldn't sell it as new, so it was sitting in the wholesaler's warehouse looking for honest work. We got it loaded down with 73GB disks for less than $15k. You might be able to do something similar.

You may be able to save additionally by purchasing your Oracle license from the same vendor at the same time. Your friendly neighborhood HP rep may also be able to cut a deal for you.

Look into Kingston Memory or DataRam (which we use). This is also available on the used market. You'll need 1 stick of HP memory to keep the warranty intact.

You might be able to get (4) 650Mhz processors for the price of (2) 875Mhz processors. This limits the growth of the system, but the 650's are plenty fast for us, and we do A LOT of Oracle.

Lastly, you will probably save additional money by NOT buying HP brand hard disks and enclosures. If all you want is JBOD, the EMC's Clarrion is speedy and cheap. On the used/refurb market, they're REALLY cheap. Right now, EMC is aggressively pricing their product--a situation that may not last long. You can buy second-generation stuff at fire sale prices now--they've got WAY too much in their warehouses.

If you need some contact info--post back here and we'll deluge you the the websites of our favorite resellers.


Chris

[George_Dodds]

Hi Mike

I'd stick with the FC option and the 10 73gb disks.
It's a lot better option than the SC10's if they are worried about the throughput.

Bob Hope... you worry me ;)

[Mike Fisher_5]

Chris:
I was unaware of the situation with 3rd party JBOD stuff
Thanks

George:
Haven't you seen "The road to Toon Town"? Brilliant
[I don't think the Yanks will get that one George !!]

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Mike

Your Guru !! is worried about fewer disks - but what are the existing disks doing as far as i/o and % busy ??



Paula

[Mark Greene_1]

Mike,

If your client has an existing Oracle support contract, as Oracle about the 1 vs 2 CPU option. Oracle has sizing formulas they use, based on the amount of data and the number of concurrent users. I just went through this with IBM to justify using a rackmounted system when the vendor recommended a deskside one.

HTH
mark

[Shannon Petry]

Okay, you wanted input so here ya go...

First, the CPU's will make a huge difference going from the K to the RP, I/O buss speed is also much better, as well as memory pipeline, etc.. Good choices to this point, so now is where I will dis-agree with you.

I think for capacity sake, your good on 10 disks, however your putting 5 on a controller. This is going to bottleneck in a high volume situation relatively quickly, as I assume your going to have 1 controller mirror the other.

You will have an immediate issue for growth if you end up needing it.

Hence, add 2 more controllers. and if you really want to keep even numbers 2 more disks.

I have tried in the past to tell customers "this is what you can get away with, but within a 3 month time frame you will need to add XYZ". Customer never buys the XYZ.

Then customer gets pissed because they are broken 6 months after never purchasing XYZ, and it's the consultants fault.

Rule 1 as a consultant is to make sure you dont give them less than they need for their immediate needs. Immediate in server talk is 2-3 years.

If the budgett is that bad off, I would recommend you look at a RP server, nice memory and config,and enough disks to get them going. Get those spindles on separate controllers. Even if you short them lots of growth initially, when you do grow your not going to get killed on bottlenecks on the controllers.

Have fun ;)
Shannon

[David Child_1]

One other option to consider if you are in a real cost bottleneck is the RP5405 model.

These come in pre-configured configurations and are more limited as to how you can get them configured on purchase, but can save a fair amount of cash depending on what you are willing to cut corners on.

They come with 675MHz CPUs, but you can upgrade them at a later time if required.

David

[Shannon Petry]

Sorry, got swamped before I finished my last thoughts properly (one of them Thursdays)...

I meant to say if the budgett is that bad off, look at HP Remarketted. Most of the time these are new boxes that have been demo'd and/or short term leased. They come with a superb warranty, and can be put on a support agreement just like a new system, but alot less up front cost.

The down side of course is that what you need, may not be available. Timing is critical.

Regards,
Shannon

[Mike Fisher_5]

0] For all the time & thought you're all putting in on my behalf
My grateful thanks

1] A. Clay:
Up to a point I understand your second paragraph
However I'm losing the plot from...
",in the 11.11 world..."
onwards
Can you expand please?
What are "cooked" files?
Why the difference for 11.11 over 10.20 & 11.0?

2] Paula:
You're right
I've figured out there's some "smoke 'n' mirrors" coming from one corner of this triangle !
I'm awaiting their response

3] Mark:
Good point
Via the guru
See 1]

4] Shannon:
Like this for example??
2 x Dual FC10's
4 x 2Gb FC host adapters
16 x 18Gb Discs
This works out at the same cost as my single FC10 config

5] David:
Thanks
I think we can't wear the lack of expansion though

******************
CLIENT, GURU & ME: WHERE WE'RE AT NOW
Guru to identify bottleneck causes

SERVER
rp5470
1 x 875MHz CPU
3Gb Memory [enough do you think?]
2 x 18Gb Disc
2 x 2Gb FC cards
HP-UX 11i
MirrorDisk
1 x Oracle Licence
[Down the road we can upgrade
if/when the money becomes available]
STORAGE
Maybe a HP VA
Maybe EMC
[looking at the marketplace]
Fastest rpm discs that are affordable
***************
Mike "There's light at the end of the tunnel - let's pray it ain't a train" Fisher

[Pete Randall]

Mike,

I've got to question the amount of memory. I think you'd be much better off with something along the lines of 8GB, however, I'm not sure where you're going to trim anything else to afford it.


Pete

[Mike Fisher_5]

Pete:

I've done a bit of searching & ...
I'm with you
5Gb more is about ??3,250
I'll take it from somewhere !!

Anyone:
Any views on 4 x cards over 2 x cards?
The rest of my comments?

[Pete Randall]

Mike,

2 x FC cards is fine, I think. What about dropping MirrorDisk/UX and having a cron job do a nightly "manual mirror" via dd? Not as resiliant but economical!


Pete

[Pete Randall]

Mike,

Sorry - make that slightly more economical and probably not worth it. It was one of those stray thoughts.


Pete

[A. Clay Stephenson]

In UNIX speak "cooked" files are those which utilize buffer cache so that reads and writes take place in memory as much as possible with the blocks written to disk periodically. "Raw" I/O completely bypasses the buffer cache. Oracle already uses buffering (the SGA) but you can add a layer to that with the system's buffer cache.

"Cooked" I/O is what you normally use. Consider a block of data in a file. In a short period of time that same block might be updated hundreds of times - each requiring a write. The application does logical writes - updating the block in buffer cache - and then at some point the system writes the buffer cache block to disk - a physical write. Likewise, a read might be satisfied many, many times from cache while only requiring one physical read from disk.

Because of improvements in the buffer caching algorithms in 11.11 (and I suspect latest patched 11.0), Oracle now performs better using both the SGA and the buffer cache. In the past, it was generally better to run rather small UNIX buffer caches and use the saved memory to expand the SGA and configure Oracle to bypass the buffer cache.

I would go for all the memory I could afford. With a large SGA (~8GB) and a large buffer cache (~1GB) you might find that disk bottlenecks all but disappear because you go to disk so infrequently - especially after a measure of equilibrium is reached. The data, after all, does have to be read into cache at least once.

I just checked and 2GB of Kingston memory is $658 US. My approach these days is to purchase 1GB of HP memory and make up the rest with 3rd party. I also purchase as many memory carriers as will be needed. Because it's so cheap, I buy 1 pair of extra DIMM's and keep them as spares. The 3rd-party memory is replaced free and usually overnite. This approach will let you seriously consider a 16GB or 32GB box.


Everytime I bring this up to my HP rep's they really have no good response. I might consider paying 2X (or at a stretch 3X) for HP memory but at something like a factor of 10 - that dog won't hunt.

[Mike Fisher_5]

Thanks forumers
I've learnt a lot from this
We're going down this route:
Investigate cause of bottlenecks
Single processor
Plenty of Memory [3rd Party mostly]
Good expandability

[Mike Fisher_5]

To International Rescue - Pete, SK, Jeff,
A. Clay, SEP, Chris,
George, Paula, Mark,
Shannon & David:

UPDATE:
Yup kit installed & running
1 x CPU & buckets of memory is the way to go
Client pleased with the results
[Saving ??25k/annum on Oracle licence helped]

They never got 'round to exploring the cause of bottleneck

Thanks once again