Is ASMLIB required for NetApp's SMO on RHEL 6 when using VMWare?
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 04:23:30 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <1340709810.2347.YahooMailNeo_at_web113506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Is ASMLIB required or recommended for NetApp's Snap Manager for Oracle (SMO) when Oracle 11gR2 is running on a VMWare RHEL 6 host (plain vanilla RedHat kernel; not the Unbreakable one)? Our storage admin, sysadmins and I are all new to Oracle on RHEL 6 (we've been a RHEL 5 shop) and Oracle running on a VMWare host. There's a question of what to do re: ASMLIB. Likely in part precipitated by threads discussing the availability of ASMLIB for RHEL 6 versus OL 6. But also by NetApp docs. Our storage admin referenced the SnapManager for Oracle Best Practices doc ASMLIB seems to be a requirement (asterisk emphasis mine):
"Automatic Storage Management support library (ASMLib) *must* be used when using ASM with iSCSI or FCP on Linux."
But our sysadmins say, in a VMWare environment, that ASM diskgroups look like plain SCSI to RHEL 6. And have suggested ASMLIB is therefore not required.
Fortunately a NetApp consultant will assist us soon in setting up SMO. But I want to be prepared so we get the most out of that engagement.
Presently we use CommVault for backups (expensive; glad to see it go). Since SMO still uses RMAN Under the Hood I hope there aren't any SMO license fees. Hate to see waste. Not sure why we're switching to SMO versus plain vanilla RMAN. Haven't seen any business requirements that would trigger SMO as a solution. Since we have been migrating all Oracle ASM storage to NetApp perhaps it was assumed having SMO was advisable. I like the LEAN philosophy of allocating resources only to things that create real and demonstrable value for the customer. Everything else is waste.
I have a post out to the NetApp forums. Nothing but silence thus far: https://forums.netapp.com/thread/31893
Any discussion that follow will invariably be over my head. Stratospherically so. So Thanks In Advance.
Dana
-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Tue Jun 26 2012 - 06:23:30 CDT