Infosys-Oracle Blog : Oracle Exadata - A platform for consolidation (Part-2)

Guest post by
Umesh Tanna, Senior Technology Architect, Oracle Practice, Enterprise Solutions, Infosys

In Part-1 of this blog we found that Exadata has many features that facilitates database consolidation. This blogs describes those features and explains how it helps in database consolidation.

Database Resource Manager (DBRM)

If we are consolidating multiple databases say for ex. A and B into a single database AB, DBRM would help us control how much resources to allocate to process/programs/sessions of A and B while they run in shared database AB. Basically this enables us to control how CPU are shared amongst A and B and also establish the priorities. This is implemented with what is known as resource allocation scheme amongst the consumer groups defined within database. Also the allocation scheme changes are dynamic i.e. we can have one resource allocation scheme effective during business hours and can have different during after business hours.

IORM (IO Resource Manager)

If we are consolidating multiple databases A and B on same exadata server but keep those running separately, IORM helps us control how much IO resources to allocate to A v/s B. In order to control between two databases, controller has to be outside the database and in exadata platform, this is best achieved by exadata software which is part of exadata platform but is located outside any single database. This functionality helps coming up with sophisticated algorithm to distributed resources.

IORM and DBRM when combined provide very good solution for both intra-database and inter-database resource management.

Mix Workload

Oracle exadata v1 primarily served for data warehousing environment. However, Exadata v2 is designed to handle both workload - OLTP and Data warehouse. Features such as offloading, compression, flash cache are well suited for OLTP workload. This means that one can consolidate this seemingly different workload into exadata.

Oracle Service

Oracle service is workload management feature. To manage workload one can design different service for different application or different set of users have different service. Services are integrated with the Resource Manager, which enables you to restrict the resources that are used by a service. Services add a new dimension. Using services, workloads are visible and measurable and resource consumption and wait times are attributable by application. For ex. AWR now provides information gathered for services.

Server Pool and Policy-Based Cluster and Capacity Management

Server pool logically divides the cluster into distinct sets of servers. Server resources of server pool can be than controlled using policy based management.

Enables dynamic capacity assignment when needed to provide server capacity in accordance with the priorities you set with policies
Enables allocation of resources by importance, so that applications obtain the required minimum resources, whenever possible, and so that lower priority applications do not take resources from more important applications
Ensures isolation where necessary, so that you can provide dedicated servers in a cluster for applications and databases

RAC One

Let us consider a case in which customer have been using active/passive Oracle database cluster (such as HP MC Service guard or Veritas cluster) and they have taken informed decision to not go for Oracle RAC. How to design for them in exadata? The answer is Oracle RAC One. RAC One uses Oracle cluster ware to provide active/passive failover and can be deployed in Exadata. This way it also facilitates in standardizing database environment.

Instance Caging

Instance caging provides way to provide portion of CPU to given instance in multi CPU server. Instance caging can be used in two different ways -

Over-provisioning - This is typically used for non-production environment and provides flexible approach.

Partitioning - This is typically used to partition the available CPUs exactly amongst the available instance.

Businesses today are faced with problem of how to move from silos of servers that are serving to accommodate peak load however that is inefficient and expensive. Oracle Exadata v2 helps solving this problem and to achieve required consolidation.

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