RE: Stripe and Mirror Everything - The "S.A.M.E. Method"

I like your humble opinion and thanks for sharing it. Now my appetite is whet for a night of fine dining.

-----Original Message-----
From: O'Brien, Stephen [mailto:stephen.obrien_at_weyerhaeuser.com] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 11:29 AM To: Oracle-L; Oracledba; 'Steve Orr'
Subject: RE: Stripe and Mirror Everything - The "S.A.M.E. Method"

Humble opinion on:

I think this approach will have strong appeal to IT Managers/Directors. It takes what I like to call the McDonald's approach to the computer center. I can walk into any McDonalds in this great country and I know what to expect in terms of experience, food and cost. They are all more or less the same (S.A.M.E !)

Managers find this approach to systems attractive for a number of reasons not limited to the fact that it appears to meet technical goals and the support staff are easier to find and they become interchangeable and outsourceable.

The paper states that the traditional approach "offers maximum configuration flexibility and performance tuning" but this works against "sameness" principles because a specialist with in-depth understanding of oracle and the application is required.

I think what they are offering is an approach that is uniform and simple. It may not be technically optimal but it does include IT management issues in the equation.

Humble opinion off !

p.s. I enjoy a Big Mac and fries just like the next guy but I'm not sure I'd like to eat there every day !

> ----------
> From: Steve Orr[SMTP:sorr_at_arzoo.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 9:54 AM
> To: Oracle-L; Oracledba
> Subject: Stripe and Mirror Everything - The "S.A.M.E. Method"
>
> Here's the url for a white paper titled "Configuring the Oracle Database
> with VERITAS Software and EMC Storage for Optimal Scalability,
> Manageability, and Performance" on Technet:
>
> http://technet.oracle.com/deploy/availability/pdf/ora_cbook1.pdf
>
> The conclusion of the paper is something like "just put everything on
> RAID0+1 and don't worry about file contention by using the 'SAME' method."
> SAME is an acronym for "stripe and mirror everything." They compare the
> old
> "traditional method" of segregating redo logs, RBS, temp, data, index, and
> system tablespaces/datafiles to the SAME method with everything residing
> on
> one large array. They give benchmarks to show that the SAME method
> actually
> performs better.
>
> Any feedback or criticism of this paper? Does it really reflect the way we
> should configure very large databases? Their test database was 50G.
>
> I'm curious about the validity of the benchmarks. It seems their
> implementation of the "traditional method" is half hearted. The only files
> they separate are the redo logs. What if they kept the same array as in
> test
> case 2 and duplexed the redo logs on drives outside the array? What if
> they
> went further and implemented physical drive separation with three volumes:
> one for data; one for indexes; and one for system, RBS, and temp
> tablespaces? What if they had a 500G database? Another curious observation
> is that db_block_size was only 4K on a Solaris E3000.
>
> The paper says, "Today, most Oracle DBAs do not configure an Oracle
> database
> and storage based on the SAME method because that is not how they were
> trained to implement Oracle and storage." It goes on to say, "...with the
> right storage software and hardware solution, we recommend that Oracle
> DBAs
> consider the new SAME approach." Hmmm... are they trying to tell us old
> DBAs
> to keep up with the technology?
>
>
> All opinions, humble and otherwise, are earnestly requested.
>
> Steve Orr
> The curious DBA.
>
>
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Received on Thu Jan 18 2001 - 16:02:00 CST