Tuesday 28 July 2015

dNFS and ASM/Filesystem

An Oracle ASM disk group can be created from NFS files, including Oracle Direct NFS (dNFS), as well as whole disks, partitions, and LUNs. The NFS files that are provisioned to a disk group may be from multiple NFS servers to provide better load balancing and flexible capacity planning.

Direct NFS can be used to store data files, but is not supported for Oracle Clusterware files. To install Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) on Windows using Direct NFS, you must also have access to a shared storage method other than NFS for Oracle Clusterware file


Advantages of 'HAVING' ASM with dNFS --

1. If we remove ASM then DBA has no or very less control over storage. He can't even see how much is the free space left as physical level.
2. Stripping option is there to gain performance benefits
3. Multiplexing has benefits over mirroring when it comes to recovery.

(e.g, suppose a database is created with only 1 controlfile as external mirroring is in place at storage level , and another database is created with 2 copies (multiplexed within Oracle level), and an rm command was issued to remove that file then definitely there will be a time difference between restoring the file back.)


"Please also note that ASM is not required for using Direct NFS and NAS. ASM can be used if customers feel that ASM functionality is a value-add in their environment. " ------How to configure ASM on top of dNFS disks in 11gR2 (Doc ID 1570073.1


Oracle Direct NFS (dNFS) is an optimized NFS (Network File System) client that provides faster and more scalable access to NFS storage located on NAS storage devices (accessible over TCP/IP). Direct NFS is built directly into the database kernel.
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The advantages of ASM are well known --

1. Easier administration for DBA, as using this 'layer', we know the storage very well.
2. automatic re-balancing and dynamic reconfiguration.
3. Stripping and mirroring (though we are not using this option in our env, external redundancy is provided at storage level).
4. Less (or no) dependency on storage admin for DB file related tasks.
5. Oracle also recommends to use ASM rather than file system storage.

 Advantages of DNFS(Direct Network File System) ---

1. Oracle bypasses the OS layer, directly connects to storage.
2. Better performance as user's data need not to be loaded in OS's kernel.
3. It load balances across multiple network interfaces in a similar fashion to how ASM operates in SAN environments.

Now if we combine these 2 options , how will be that configuration in terms of administration/manageability/performance/downtime in future in case of migration.

I have collected some points.

In favor of 'NOT' HAVING ASM--

1. ASM is an extra layer on top of storage so if using dNFS ,this layer should be removed as there are no performance benefits.
2. store the data in file system rather than ASM.
3. Stripping will be provided  at storage level (not very much sure about this).
4. External redundancy is being used at storage level so its better to remove ASM. 



How To Setup DNFS (Direct NFS) On Oracle Release 11.2 (Doc ID 1452614.1) 

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