NT/Oracle defrag: just say no / RE: server sizing [NT: need XEON?]

Lerone,

(It appears you wanted to also reply to the list, but didn't get the list address into your response, so I'm including your entire message below in this reply to the list. )

Glad you found the info useful.

I hope you are going to be able to get a box that can be upgraded from 2 cpus to at least 4 (or that your SLA states that additional scaling might require whole replacement with a 4way or 6way or 8way box later).

We had a discussion of NT/Oracle defrag recently.

As you probably know, the "conventional wisdom" for NT SysAdmins is to use one of the better defrag products, and frequently.

   http://www.ultratech-llc.com/Personal/Files/?File=Defragger.TXT

However, Oracle says that *IF* you do things "right", you should NOT want-to/need-to/have-to defrag.

Something along the lines of: NTFS is such that when the Oracle db files are pre-allocated, they are basically "pre-defragged", and since they are maintained as large files, there are *no* conditions under which they are going to fragment (at the OS level) after being created. All defragging should be internal to Oracle (imp/exp, or whatever...)

Having repeatedly read the "conventional wisdom" about the need to defrag NT constantly, I was initially amazed at Oracle's assertion, but in subsequent discussion with Oracle tech support, as well as the gurus in this list and the NT list, it turns out Oracle is right.

Of course for a non-db server (eg, a file server) that has a lot of small files that change a lot, defragging is needed.

I noticed that you haven't mentioned backup issues. We are currently struggling to decide between getting the Oracle modules from either Legato or Veritas (hot backup), or just staying with NT4, and doing manual/scripted cold backups only.

On another, semi-related topic, when I used to be subscribed to a couple of Netware SysAdmin lists, I noticed that there was a pretty high percentage of people subscribed with a *lot* of "old school" type engineering and hardware Intel/Drive-config/Networking expertise. You might consider subscribing to one of those and slip a few hardware questions in. (archives:
http://lsv.syr.edu/archives/novell.html, that list's super-guru: Joe Doupnik <JRD_at_CC.USU.EDU>)

Of course beware that SysAmins, especially Netwareistas & other old timers, usually tend to hate dbas, and refer to Oracle as "the beast". :)

regards,
ep

On 18 Apr 2001, at 10:04, Streeter, Lerone A LBX <StreeLA2_at_HPD.Abbott.com> wrote:

To:                     "'PierceED_at_csus.edu'" <PierceED_at_csus.edu>
Date sent:              Wed, 18 Apr 2001 10:04:06 -0500

> thank you all, such an incredible amount of information and some much
> desired real world testimony. just off the top of my head we'll more than
> likely be going with compaq and there are versions of windows 2000 that
> support 8GB of RAM so that should suffice. a lot of my information is
> gestimates based on what we have or know. i consider us small-to-medium and
> the 300 users and such are worst case guesses based on one time peaks.
>
> as i remember we were looking at dual 1GHz processor boxii and being that
> our existing, insufficient, storage is about 200G we'll be looking at
> external rack mount chassis. we have to archive/purge our database at
> regular intervals to manage space and the archive information needs to be
> readily accessible for six years. right now we've got a production database
> and at least four archive databases which consume about 90G.
>
> I think we'll be ok with the mixed bag of drive configurations, raid5 and
> raid1; no raid0... failed drive will kill the raid0 set, better to use a
> more recoverable raid; which brings up another question. Defragmentation.
> they talked a lot on defragmentation so now i'm wondering how may of you
> NT'ers use an O/S defragmenter or do you use the export/drop/build/import
> method? not good with millions of rows i'd assume from my own personal
> experiences with migrating from server to server. i'm working on a
> spec/tech document and i'll post it when completed, with acknowledgements of
> course... thanks.
>
>
>
> ===========================================
> Lerone Streeter
> System Analyst
> Abbott LBG
> StreeLA2_at_hpd.abbott.com
> ===========================================

...

> On 17 Apr 2001, at 12:11, Streeter, Lerone A LBX wrote:
>
> Date sent: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:11:22 -0800
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> From: "Streeter, Lerone A LBX"
> <StreeLA2_at_HPD.Abbott.com>
> Subject: RE: server sizing
>
> ...
>
> > why NT? familiarity and comfort. we've asked and everyone doted on
> > oracle's ability to run on NT just as well as *nix and being that we have
> 0
> > *nix boxes mgmt of course wanted NT. we looked for support in having
> oracle
> > on *nix but found none and accepted the offering.
>
> ...
>
> >>...right now we have about 100 users and a 20G DB which *will*
> >> increase to probably 300 users and 40G to 50G DB; on average we're
> >> looking at about thirty thousand transactions over an 11 hour
> >> period; again that'll probably increase to 70,000 to 80,000
> >> transactions over an 11 hour period. reads/writes/queries/indexes,
> >> their size and speed, and other such processing metrics, were
> >> never a concern.
>
> ...
>

-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Eric D. Pierce
  INET: PierceED_at_csus.edu

Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California        -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).