DBaaS With Oracle 12c On EMC VMAX3 - … · Solution Overview 1 DBAAS WITH ORACLE 12C ON VMAX3 ....

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Solution Overview 1 DBAAS WITH ORACLE 12C ON VMAX3 TOP FEATURES DBAS MUST KNOW INTRODUCTION Organizations and database teams are constantly researching how to automate databases in order to deal with their massive data growth. In an IDC published paper its estimated by 2020 the digital universe will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes. Gartner says there will be 7.3 billion devices but the Internet of Things (IoT) will grow to 26 billion units by 2020. Data growth is one dimension and competitiveness another. Companies, IT departments, and database teams must innovate or risk losing customers. The explosion in data growth hasn’t increased the size of most DBA teams. Instead businesses encourage teams to innovate and automate to manage more with the same number of resources. Many DBAs have had experience with virtualizing application services and are now investigating how to automate database lifecycle management in the cloud. Enter Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) in which the routine database provisioning and lifecycle tasks can be standardized and automated. Critical to a successful DBaaS platform is hyper-consolidation and a storage platform that can support the scale of consolidating and managing large number of databases. The VMAX3 is the enterprise cloud data storage platform of choice for your DBaaS solution. In this overview we will show why the VMAX3 is uniquely positioned to drive performance, protect data, and scale to meet the business requirements of your DBaaS platform. VMAX3 HYPERCONSOLIDATION ENABLES TCO SAVINGS IT organizations and database teams are looking for ways to reduce total cost of ownership and improve services levels. All-flash arrays improve service levels but at a significant cost. Traditional arrays have the capacity for consolidation and are lower cost but don’t improve or automate performance service levels. The VMAX3 with the its HYPERMAX OS and intelligent use of Flash and traditional hard drives, is a revolutionary cloud platform that matches service levels of all-flash arrays but with a lower total cost of ownership. In a recent Infobrief by IDC they found IT organizations can reduce TCO of their storage infrastructure by more than 30% through the efficiencies they gain in using the VMAX3. Why is the VMAX3 the leader in hyperconsolidation? IT organizations can consolidate more storage, data services, and applications services on the VMAX3 cloud platform than any other array. The economics of scale drive greater consolidation and greater $/GB savings.

Transcript of DBaaS With Oracle 12c On EMC VMAX3 - … · Solution Overview 1 DBAAS WITH ORACLE 12C ON VMAX3 ....

Solution Overview 1

DBAAS WITH ORACLE 12C ON VMAX3 TOP FEATURES DBAS MUST KNOW

INTRODUCTION

Organizations and database teams are constantly researching how to automate databases in order to deal with their massive data growth. In an IDC

published paper its estimated by 2020 the digital universe will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes. Gartner says there will be 7.3 billion devices but the Internet of Things (IoT) will grow to 26 billion units by 2020. Data growth is one dimension and

competitiveness another. Companies, IT departments, and database teams must innovate or risk losing customers.

The explosion in data growth hasn’t increased the size of most DBA teams. Instead businesses encourage teams to innovate and automate to manage more with the same number of resources. Many DBAs have had experience with virtualizing application services and are now investigating how to automate database lifecycle management in the cloud.

Enter Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) in which the routine database provisioning and lifecycle tasks can be standardized and automated. Critical to a successful DBaaS platform is hyper-consolidation and a storage platform that can support the scale of consolidating and managing large number of databases. The VMAX3 is the enterprise cloud data storage platform of choice for your DBaaS solution. In this overview we will show why the VMAX3 is uniquely positioned to drive performance, protect data, and scale to meet the business requirements of your DBaaS platform.

VMAX3 HYPERCONSOLIDATION ENABLES TCO SAVINGS IT organizations and database teams are looking for ways to reduce total cost of ownership and improve services levels. All-flash arrays improve service levels but at a significant cost. Traditional arrays have the capacity for consolidation and are lower cost but don’t improve or automate performance service levels. The VMAX3 with the its HYPERMAX OS and intelligent use of Flash and traditional hard drives, is a revolutionary cloud platform that matches service levels of all-flash arrays but with a lower total cost of ownership.

In a recent Infobrief by IDC they found IT organizations can reduce TCO of their storage infrastructure by more than 30% through the efficiencies they gain in using the VMAX3. Why is the VMAX3 the leader in hyperconsolidation? IT organizations can consolidate more storage, data services, and applications services on the VMAX3

cloud platform than any other array. The economics of scale drive greater consolidation and greater $/GB savings.

Solution Overview 2

Enterprise-wide storage consolidation requires high density storage platform and the VMAX3 has a maximum capacity of 4.3 petabytes. IDC estimates the VMAX3 has increased storage density by 75% per floor tile translating into a 14% savings on a $/GB basis. Performance has increased by 9 times per floor tile too. More databases can run faster on the VMAX3 per datacenter floor tile than any other array.

VMAX3 storage management is done through Unisphere which uses a graphical, application-aware model with a web-familiar look and feel. Easy navigation and built-in best practices enables the management of advanced storage features by IT generalists. Additionally, DBAs can use the free Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c plug-in for monitoring, tuning and reporting of any databases running on the VMAX3. Database Storage Analyzer (DSA), part of Unisphere for VMAX brings, application awareness to the VMAX3. Using DSA the database administrator can configure hints in advance to increase I/O performance of business critical database objects, for eg., during end of month billing cycle. The VMAX3 lowers management overhead and improves application performance using unique tools and seamless integration with Oracle databases. The VMAX3 is an Oracle aware storage platform ideal for implementing Database-as-a-Service.

1-CLICK PERFORMANCE & CONSOLIDATION Database administrators need sub-millisecond performance to reduce time spent on tuning and hyper-consolidation to scale the number of supported databases. The VMAX3 Service Level Objectives (SLO) provides DBAs the ability to intelligently provision storage for databases based upon performance and consolidation requirements. EMC estimates using SLO provisioning is 85% faster than the traditional method of configuring storage.

Figure 1: Service Level Objectives Automation, Performance and Consolidation

The new SLO based storage provisioning process just takes minutes and erases any uncertainties about performance. The Diamond SLO optimizes for performance investment by providing higher IOPS than any other level while the Bronze level optimizes capacity making it ideal for consolidation. The services levels between Diamond and Bronze blend performance with consolidation thereby giving the broadest range of levels of any hybrid cloud array.

DATABASE PERFORMANCE LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT The VMAX3 hybrid storage platform is ideal for Database-as-a-Service because the SLO enables seamless product-lifecycle management. Initial database placement can start with the bronze level as its capacity will scale to support thousands of databases. As the database elevates in importance the DBA can move it to faster performance levels with the click of a button.

Oracle 12c Architecture • CDB and Four PDBs • Oracle Enterprise Linux • VMAX 200K Array

Oracle 12c PDB Using SLO Tiers

• CDB & PDB1 on Platinum

• PDB2 on Gold • PDB3 on Silver • PDB4 Bronze • Redo on Platinum • FRA on Bronze

Findings

• Oracle 12c PDBs can be consolidated onto an EMC VMAX3 while providing service levels to allow for varying performance requirements of PDBs

• VMAX3 SLO combined with EMC FAST technology can dynamically allocate resources to Oracle 12c PDBs to meet performance challenges

• VMAX3 combined with EMC ProtectPoint and Data Domain allows the Oracle DBA to create Oracle full backups for the same storage and performance cost as incremental backups

Solution Overview 3

Figure 2: 5 Times More Transactions Per Minute Moving From Bronze to Diamond

In an EMC white paper on deployment best practices for Oracle on the VMAX3 an OLTP database workload was initially placed on bronze and seamlessly moved to each level until it reached platinum. The transaction rate jumped from 26,377 on bronze to 146,000 on diamond, an increase of 5 times the transactions. The same test also showed response times dropping by 5 times: bronze with 7.39 milliseconds and diamond at 1.49 milliseconds.

Elasticity is one of the essential components of DBaaS as DBAs must have the flexibility to dynamically increase and decrease performance of individual databases. Consider the scenario of an application placed in the gold level but during peak workload times needs to be able to support the maximum number of transactions at the lowest response times. On demand mobility of SLO levels means the DBA can move the database to diamond during the peak workload times and then move it back to gold. This lets the DBA easily manage demanding scenarios that otherwise might have taken days.

SELF SERVICE MONITORING WITH ORACLE ENTERPRISE MANAGER 12C PLUG-IN Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) 12c is one of the most popular DBA tools as it integrates with databases to enable management of database environments. The challenge most DBAs have is using database statistics to analyze storage performance. For example, looking at database I/O wait events like db file sequential read, db file parallel read and others can give a DBA a clue into storage response times but not the complete picture. In a study by Unisphere Research on the drive to innovation found that 80% of data managers agree that it’s important to improve DBA-to-storage administrator communications.

The EMC VMAX3 plug-in for Enterprise Manager solves the problem by providing the DBA read-only access to storage information while assuring the storage administrator that they retain configuration control. This free plug-in can be downloaded from the Oracle Extensibility Exchange website, simply search for VMAX to find the plug-in.

Business Scalability • Flash Optimized

Architecture • Drive Down Costs with

FAST Dynamic Virtual Matrix

• Allocates Cores Between Front And Back-End Operations

• Enables Hyper-scale though Ubiquitous Multi-Threading

Extreme Availability • 6x9’s Application Data

Availability • Upgrade Non-

disruptively, Isolate Fault & Validate Data Integrity

Industry’s 1st Storage Hypervisor

• HYPERMAX OS Delivers Mission-critical App & Data services

• Increase Performance and Lower Latency with Less External Hardware

Service Level Objective Automation

• 1-Click Service Level Delivery

• Analyzes, Enforces, Remediates, & Optimizes to Achieve Objectives

Extended Data Services • FAST.X Extends SLO’s to

Additional EMC and 3rd Party Arrays

• Embedded XtremIO as the Low Latency Compressed Flash Tier

Solution Overview 4

After initial collaboration between database and storage administrators the DBA will have access to features like those shown in Figure 3:

Figure 3: Monitoring the VMAX3 with Enterprise Manager 12c Plug-in

Oracle states that using Enterprise Manger will improve staff productivity by up to 75% and we believe adding VMAX3 storage monitoring will further increase productivity. The EMC Storage Plug-in for OEM 12c consists of several components that work together to collect configuration and performance data from both database servers and EMC storage systems.

The EMC Home page shows the Storage dashboard which shows reads, writes and throughput for selected databases. The DBA can choose to view these storage metrics over the Last Day, Last Week or Last Month. The DBA can quickly analyze storage performance and correlate it to database performance. Now the DBA can determine in a matter of minutes if performance issues are related to storage (or not).

Figure 4: Storage Pane for EM 12c Plug-in

In Figure 5 is a part of the Database Storage dashboard that has been recreated for readability. Selecting databases in the Database Storage pane displays the metrics in the Storage page as shown in Figure 5. Multiple database storage targets can be graphed simultaneously. Using the table it’s easy for DBAs to quickly see what storage array the databases are on and the reads per second, writes per second, Reads MB per second and writes MB per second.

Figure 5: Storage Dashboard for EM 12c Plug-in

Superna’s Experience using the VMAX3 From consolidation alone, we generated power savings of at least 20-25%. VMAX3 has also allowed us to become more efficient. Previously, we chose each array based on a project’s workload; it was a tricky matching exercise. With VMAX3 and SLO provisioning, we simply click a button instead of going through the process of allocating physical storage array. The SLO provisioning lets us shift an application to a higher or lower tier of storage depending on each project’s objectives. It’s automatic—we just set it and forget it.

Andrew McKay

Chief Technology Officer, Superna

Solution Overview 5

In the Array pane as shown in Figure 6, you can see the arrays being monitored and the incidents and problems for each array. For example, you can see two VMAX arrays appear to be out of compliance one for one day and the other for fourteen days. DBAs find the Array pane useful in checking if the arrays they want to monitor have been registered in Enterprise Manager and to quickly investigate any incidents.

Figure 6: Storage Pane for EM 12c Plug-in

The Database storage page displays information about the Oracle database and storage associated with the database. The Hierarchy pane, seen in Figure 7 below, is at the top of the page and displays the technology stack that is running the database. Clicking on any of the images in the hierarchy allows the DBA to drill down into the supporting storage performance metrics.

Figure 7: Hierarchy Pane

The Storage pane, Figure 8 below, displays response time, throughput and IOPS for a selectable period of time: last day, last week or last month. The Storage pane is at the top half of Figure 8 and helps DBAs view overall storage performance. At the bottom of Figure 8 is the Database pane which has the same performance metrics and time selections as the Storage pane. DBAs can correlate the Storage and Database panes to see overall storage performance relative to database performance.

Figure 8: Storage Pane (Top) and Database Pane (Bottom)

;

The VMAX Storage dashboard as shown in Figure 9 displays detailed information about VMAX arrays. Using this view you can click on array components and drill down into secondary pages for more information on specific components. Array pane shows overall response time, front end requests and back end IOs of the array. This is information that DBAs don’t normally have access to. Using this view DBAs can see if the array is over saturated with I/O’s or other issues.

EMC Storage Plug-in For Oracle Enterprise Manager

YouTube Video About: • Quick Overview of Plug-

in integrations • How To Register EMC

Arrays in OEM 12c • Overview of New Storage

Functionality

EMC Storage Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Demo

Watch to see the EMC Storage Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c in action. Find out how easily database administrators (DBAs) can gain visibility into their EMC storage arrays and manage their database performance.

Solution Overview 6

Figure 9: Array pane with Selectable Times

The last two panes shown in Figure 10 are the Front End Directors (top) and Thin Pool (bottom). These dashboards are excellent for a DBA to collaborate with a storage administrator if the response times seem excessive.

Figure 10: Array pane with Selectable Times

Collaboration between the DBA and storage administrators is strengthened because both share the same view of performance metrics. Using the EM plug-in can reduce significant amount of time that the DBA typically spends by streamlining activities like daily monitoring, historical reporting, performance tuning and storage capacity planning. Additionally, for mission critical systems the DBA can set alerts to be notified when a performance threshold has been breached. For example, setting an alert on when read response time exceeds 2 milliseconds will enable the DBA to quickly remediate the problem.

Using the VMAX3 EM plug-in the DBA can intelligently manage the entire Oracle stack from the database down to storage. The capabilities of VMAX3 storage become transparent to the DBA for a much more comprehensive approach to enterprise monitoring.

DATABASE I/O CLASSIFICATION WITH DATABASE STORAGE ANALYZER Database Storage Analyzer (DSA) is another very useful tool that helps DBAs easily identify databases with I/O problems and drill down to the database object level to determine what part of the database that has excessive I/O waits. DSA monitors Oracle databases and correlates database I/O with storage-level activity. Hinting is a feature that is available now and will allow the DBA to accelerate databases objects, using a scheduler, that need more performance.

DBAs are granted access to the Database Storage Analyzer by the storage administrator. Once access has been granted the DBA uses a URL to access the web tool. The DSA dashboard presents a list of databases and indicates the health of the database based on response time. Figure 11 shows a portion of the DSA dashboard and it’s easy to see the database health and in the case of database ora12 has read times are excessive. The DBA can then easily breakdown reads by small and large response times.

Architected for High Performance

• Three Times Greater Performance

• Two Times More Capacity

Oracle Specific Performance Enhancements

• Application-aware Behavior Intelligence

• ProtectPoint for Backup and Restore

Leading Availability • 6x9’s of Availability

Support • Decades of Experience

with Mission Critical Databases

Greatest Storage Efficiency

• Increase Overall Performance

• Service Level Objectives for Performance Mobility

Simple Management and View of Storage

• FREE Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Plug-in

• EMC Unisphere Storage Management Software

Enterprise Scalability • Upgrade Without

Disruption • Highly Automated, Low

Overhead Management

Solution Overview 7

Figure 11: Dashboard View Showing List of Databases and Their Status

Clicking on the Performance tab the DBA can see the I/O Wait vs. Non-I/O Wait, Response time and IOPS graphs over any period of time. Figure 12 has a sample of these three graphs and shows how easy it is for the DBA to perform in depth analysis using the performance views. The I/O Wait vs. Non-I/O Wait graph is useful in determining if the database is waiting for storage related reads, writes and/or redo writes. The Response Time and IOPS are useful in identifying performance trends over time. For example, a group of reports scheduled to run every day at 6 a.m. causes a peak in response times and IOPS can be identified by the DBA using these charts. We choose to show three charts from the Performance view but there are others like Throughput that can be very helpful.

Figure 12: Performance View Showing I/O Waits, Response Time and IOPS

In the Analytics dashboard the DBA can investigate performance at a much more granular level. The top of Figure 13 is a sample of the Wait Events Classified Over Time showing detailed metrics for events like Buffer I/O, Buffer Latch, and many others. The Wait Events view is important because the DBA can accurately investigate which wait events account for the most time. For example, the chart shows most time is spent on CPU (teal) and occasionally waiting for CPU (light green).

The bottom graph in Figure 13 shows Database Objects. Presented to the DBA is a list of database objects organized by I/O wait time. At the top of the list will be the objects with the most I/O wait time. One immediate action the DBA can take is evaluating if the data files holding these objects are on the proper storage performance level. For example, the DBA moves the data files from Gold (5 ms) to Diamond (sub-millisecond) for a 5 times reduction in I/O wait times. An action like this can be done with a few clicks and takes just seconds to perform but has a profound impact on improving performance.

This video shows how the core design architecture of the VMAX3 provides the industry’s highest performance and capacity density. In addition, you see how VMAX3 is the industry’s first storage data services platform, and how it provides infrastructure consolidation through the in boarding of storage.

Learn about EMC’s brand new addition to the VMAX family - The VMAX3 redefines enterprise storage with the industry’s first enterprise data service platform. Take an inside look at what makes up the VMAX3 with 3D animations and explosions of the array itself and its revolutionary engine, DAE, Dynamic Virtual Matrix, and HYPERMAX OS.

EMC VMAX3 Consolidated Architecture Video

VMAX3 in 3D – Industry’s First Enterprise Data Service Platform

Solution Overview 8

Figure 13: Performance View Showing Waits Events Over Time

In Figure 14 the database ora11 has been selected and all utilization metrics related to the database are displayed. Now the DBA can see health of components like FE Directors, RDF Directors and BE Directors that play a performance role but not captured by AWR reports. For example, in Figure 14, you can see that the FE Directors Queue utilization is impacting the performance of ora11.

Beside Utilization the DBA can click to see a Heatmap, Workload, FAST, IO Ports and Alerts. Each of these views uniquely present storage-to-database performance statistics and metrics that let the DBA do in depth analysis. Inspecting all components supporting your database physical I/O has never been easier.

Figure 14: Performance View Database Overview

Hinting gives the DBA the unique capability to proactively and automatically promote database objects to a faster tier of storage. To explain why this is so powerful we have to touch upon how caching works for databases and storage. Caches only keep data in memory once it has been read from disk and depending upon the cache size, it can only retain a subset of the data. If the data is available in the cache (cache hit) performance is improved but if the data is not in cache (cache miss) performance suffers. Having to read from drives will always occur when initially reading data (not in cache yet) and accessing data that has been aged out of the cache.

With DSA Hinting the DBA can take top I/O database objects and add a hint the VMAX3 will use to proactively cache the data. In Figure 15 the DBA is setting hinting parameters to cache the database objects DM_KPI_EM_WKLY_SUMMARY and ACCOUNT_TABLE_NEW. Now every Sunday at 10 p.m. these objects will proactively be cached for three hours. In this case before using DSA hinting a billing report took 24 minutes to run and after only took 11 minutes a performance improvement of two

Oracle 12c Architecture • CDB and PDB • Oracle Enterprise Linux • VMAX 200K Array

Oracle 12c Test Database Configuration

• FINDB Database 1.5TB in size

• +Data on Bronze • +REDO on Bronze

Findings Moved FINDB Database To Increasingly Faster SLO Tiers:

• Bronze TPM: 26,377 • Silver TPM: 32,482 • Gold TPM: 72,300 • Platinum: 146,162

TPM In moving the FINDB database from initial placement of Bronze to Platinum the transactions per minute increased by 5 times!

Solution Overview 9

times. The DBA can monitor the impact of their hints using the DSA Analytics view which enables verification and if necessary further fine tuning.

Figure 15: Data Storage Analyzer Hinting

The power of the DSA tool is the capability it gives the DBA to manage the entire stack from database to storage infrastructure at scale. Using this tool the DBA can identify which databases are experiencing performance problems and then navigate down to the database object level and use hinting to improve performance. This is called storage application awareness and makes the VMAX3 the ultimate DBA storage platform for DBaaS.

DATABASE COPY MANAGEMENT USING SNAPVX DBA teams have to manage larger databases, greater number of databases and increase productivity as their teams have to support more with the name number of people. Today’s storage arrays must facilitate the ability to easily create database copies without consuming too much capacity, without impacting production performance and they must enable protection. The VMAX3 delivers all of these features empowering IT organizations to deliver new products and services to the market quicker.

The new SnapVX tool on VMAX3 can intelligently take logical or physical point-in-time copies of Oracle database in seconds. For example, a logical copy of a critical production database can be taken every hour with minimal space and performance overhead. If the business needs access to one of the production copies it can be easily linked to another target device for restore or reuse. DBAs and developers can then use the production copy to test patches, performance tuning, recovering data or many other activities.

In a recent EMC paper about VMAX3 Service Level Objectives and SnapVX for Oracle 12c we tested the impact of creating database copies from production. Silly Little Oracle Benchmark (SLOB) was used to create a 75/25 read/write OLTP workload on an Oracle 12c database. We automated the creation of six database copies, one copy every ten minutes, using a combination of Unisphere and Solutions Enabler scripting.

Figure 16: Negligible impact of database copies on production

• Intelligent forecasting and hinting automatically optimizes FAST policy for Oracle and other enterprise applications

• Embedded management

software eliminates the need for a separate server, software installation, and setup

• FAST.X extends VMAX3’s

enterprise data services and automated storage tiering to external arrays

• Revolutionary

ProtectPoint offers up to 10x the speed, and up to 50% cost savings as it tightly integrates VMAX3 with Data Domain Backup Systems

• Simplify VMAX

management with the power of Unisphere

• SRDF improved

performance and efficiency achieves six 9s of availability via SRDF, including 3 site Star configurations

• SRDF/Metro delivers

synchronous active/active replication across metro distances

Solution Overview 10

Figure 16 shows the impact of creating six production database copies: the total IOPS between the baseline and snapshot creation decreased about 3.8% which was negligible. Using SnapVX to create database copies represents no performance risk to production databases.

Refreshing a copy of production involves a few clicks to relink to the same snapshot or new snapshot copy. Testing database patches is an excellent use case for quick database refreshes. DBAs must validate the procedure to apply patches to assure it is repeatable and fixes targeted issues. Being able to quickly refresh a logical database copy through SnapVX can save hours of DBA time in validating database patches.

VMAX3 can create up to 256 logical database copies of each database taking minimal space and enabling the DBA team to protect production systems for weeks or months using SnapVX. Figure 17 shows how SnapVX NoCopy can create logical database copies taking minimal space. In the chart a 10 TB production database has five logical copies created and each copy takes a small .1 TB fraction of the space. On traditional storage arrays the snapshots would use the same amount of space as the production database, taking a total of 60 TB (production + 5 copies). Even on some competitive engineered systems there is a requirement for one full copy of production and then the other snapshots can be thinly provisioned but this takes significantly more space: production + one full read only copy + 5 copies means over 20 TB of used space. On the VMAX3 the total space used for production and its five logical copies is 10.5 TB which is a 95% capacity savings!

Figure 17: Minimal space used with SnapVX logical copies (NoCopy)

Using SnapVX increases utilization of the VMAX3 and lowers TCO. DBA teams can increase productivity by automating the creation of database copies without risk of impacting production performance. The end result is higher service levels and the ability of the DBA team to rapidly respond to database demands.

DBA SELF-SERVICE LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT & DATABASE PROVISIONING Many DBA teams don’t have access to storage features to provision and protect databases. DBAs need to use storage array features to quickly create copies of production databases and replication to automate local and remote application

EMC VMAX3 Service Level Objectives

Watch to learn about the problems that IT departments face today in scaling storage environments and how EMC VMAX3 delivers a radically new approach to simplifying provisioning and ongoing performance management.

EMC VMAX3 Service Level Objectives Interactive Demo

Watch and interact to experience what it’s like to provision a VMAX3. Click through each part of the service-level objectives (SLO) paradigm cycle and learn how to provision a new storage group as well as change a service level that’s already been set up.

Solution Overview 11

availability. AppSync is a solution that improves operational efficiency by being both Oracle aware and EMC storage-aware for DBAs to provision, protect, and failover databases and applications. Collaboration continues between the storage and DBA teams as they need to define where databases can be provisioned and the available capacity. The benefit is simplified day-to-day management and saving team resources as the new initiatives can be directly managed by DBAs saving both teams time.

Discovering databases on a host is easy. The DBA chooses Discover Databases from the drop-down menu and AppSync uses the /etc/oratab file to discover running databases. Databases not in the oratab file or not running will not be discovered. Once database has been discovered on a host the DBA subscribes the database to a protection plan.

There is no limit to the number of objects a DBA can subscribe to a service protection plan. This is important because an Application DBA can have fine grained control to group multiple LUNs together to protect the entire enterprise application. There are three protection service plans a DBA can subscribe to. The gold service plan offers the most comprehensive protection by replicating copies both locally and remotely. Using the gold service plan means recovery of the applications and databases can be done from multiple locations increasing protection. The silver service plan uses replication to protect the applications and database remotely. Use the silver service plan for disaster site protection. The bronze protection plan creates a local copy of the applications or database on the same storage array. Use bronze to create point-in-time backups that can be used to quickly recover production.

Figure 18: AppSync predefined protection service plans

All protection service plans are customizable and come with these default settings:

• Place a database in hot-backup mode (enabled) • Copy the Fast Recovery Area (disable) • Index and copy BCT (block change tracking) file (disabled) • Create backup control file (disabled)

In addition to customizing the above default settings the DBA can define the number of databases copies that are kept at the local and remote destinations. The default for service plans is to keep 7 copies but by a adjusting the number of copies a DBA can maintain more copies or, if storage capacity is at a premium, less copies. All customized protection service plan settings can then be saved to a new plan that matches your business requirements.

In a recent AppSync for Oracle Lifecycle Management proven solution the bronze protection service plan was used to protect two 1 TB databases every 24 hours. In

Essentials • Achieve predictable

performance at massive scale for extreme-growth hybrid cloud environments

• Consolidate mission-critical, high-demand transaction processing and Big Data workloads to reduce total cost of ownership

• Process millions of IOPS at sub-millisecond latency via VMAX3 all-flash configurations

• Extend storage tiering across the data center with FAST.X

• Runs VMware Virtual Volumes on VMAX3 and assign service level objectives per virtual machine (VM)

• Run powerful storage and application workloads on VMAX3; easily deploy via integrated storage hypervisor

• Protect vital information at six-nines availability through SRDF remote replication

• Rapidly provision VMAX3 storage and set service levels objectives with one-click: diamond, platinum, gold, silver, and bronze

Solution Overview 12

this scenario one database called BR-HBKP was protected with hot backup mode. In hot backup mode the Oracle data files and archive log files are backed up in the snapshot. This creates an applications-consistent backup. It only took 4 minutes and 15 seconds to protect the database in hot backup mode using the bronze service plan.

The second database called BR-NO-HBKP was protected without hot backup mode. When hot backup mode is not used, only Oracle datafiles and the redo logs are backed up in the snapshot. This creates a crash-consistent backup. It only took 3 minutes and 41 seconds to protect the second database without hot backup mode using the bronze plan.

Using AppSync the DBA is able to restore the BR-HBKP database by copying back the data and archive logs. To provide the database administrator with maximum control over the startup time of the database, AppSync leaves the database in a restore, shutdown state. The next steps involved issuing the database commands startup mount and recover database and full media recovery was complete. To recover the BR-HBKP database it took 2 minutes and 3 seconds.

Using AppSync the DBA was able to restore the BR-NO-HBKP database by copying back the datafiles. In the case of a crash-consistent database backup all the DBA needs to do is mount and let the database perform a recovery. To recovery the BR-NO-HBKP database it took 1 minute and 21 seconds.

The results show how DBAs can effortlessly protect databases and applications in minutes. Recovery of a database can be done in minutes with or without database hot backup mode. Most important is the DBA has control of the storage features to protect databases. Monitoring, management and Service Level Reporting are all part of the value AppSync delivers to the DBA team.

AppSync can create database copies on-demand (called repurpose), per a schedule and expire them automatically. When creating a database copy AppSync can run pre-copy, post-copy and post mount scripts. An example, of a post-copy script is masking data in the database. An example, of a post-mount script is removing old reports from a directory. Running scripts as part of the database copy process is non-blocking, which means that even if they fail, service plan execution does not terminate. In this way AppSync provides the functionality to create multiple customized services that can deliver databases in a DBaaS model.

Figure 19: AppSync lifecycle management

Oracle 12c Architecture • CDB and PDB • RedHat Linux Linux • VMAX 400K Array • PowerPath 6

Oracle 12c Test Database Configuration

• Database 1TB in size • All datafiles on all-flash • Silly Little Oracle

Workload (SLOB) tool Findings OLTP Test Findings:

• VMAX3 caching combined with all-flash consistently delivered sub-millisecond response times under a 200,000 IOPS workload

DSS Test Findings: • VMAX3 delivered 6 GB/s

throughput The VMAX3 can be configured as an all-flash array delivering sub-millisecond response times and good throughput while providing all the enterprise features (snapshots, clones, replication and more) IT centers expect from enterprise class storage.

Solution Overview 13

In the AppSync for Oracle Lifecycle Management paper use case 1 takes a DBA through the scenario of recreating a Gold and Patch databases and then just refreshing the Patch database. The DBA can recreate 1st and 2nd generation copies at the same time increasing efficiency. In Figure 20 the DBA refreshes both the Gold and Patch databases at the same time taking 15 minutes to complete.

In the second test the DBA expires (removes) the database because there is no further need to use it. Expiring a database removes the database from the AppSync catalog. The DBA then recreates a new 2nd generation Patch database from Gold which takes 11 minutes.

Figure 20: AppSync Repurposing Databases

In a Database-as-a-Service infrastructure the challenge provisioning databases becomes a problem of scale and automation. AppSync integrates with your best practices by automatically running database customization scripts. Lifecycle management is easy as DBAs can create databases on-demand, per a schedule and expire. Efficiency increases as AppSync can refresh multiple databases in minutes with just a few clicks.

AppSync integrates with VMAX3 to present Service Level Objectives as part of mounting a database. For example, a patch database doesn’t require the same performance as production and therefore can go on the silver level.

Figure 21: AppSync Presenting VMAX3 SLO as part of Mount Settings

Oracle 12c Architecture • CDB and PDB • Oracle Enterprise Linux • VMAX 200K Array • PowerPath 5.7 SP4

Oracle 12c Test Database Configuration

• PDB1 on Platinum • PDB2 on Gold • PDB3 on Silver • PDB4 on Bronze

Findings

• Oracle Database 12c PDBs can be consolidated onto an EMC VMAX3 while providing service levels to allow for varying performance requirements of PDBs

• VMAX3 SLOs combined with EMC FAST technology can dynamically allocate resources to Oracle 12c PDBs to meet performance challenges

• VMAX3 combined with EMC Protect and Data Domain allows the Oracle DBA to create Oracle full backups for the same storage and performance cost as incremental Oracle backups

Solution Overview 14

There are more features in AppSync than were covered in this paper. For example, AppSync can protect virtual machines and restore VMware VMFS datastores. We recommend visiting the EMC AppSync Community and the Oracle Community to read posts and ask questions. Using AppSync drives down complexity and automates many of the manually scripted clones, snapshots, and replication tasks. Further, AppSync provides uniform management across EMC VMAX, XtremIO, and VNX storage arrays so operational efficiency remains high.

Using AppSync with the VMAX3 enables provisioning and repurposing of applications to any SLO giving the DBA the flexibility to match performance SLAs to databases. Using AppSync transforms database management into a fully dynamic Database-as-a-Service platform with rapid service times and automation.

AppSync Free Trial

Check out how a simple, SLA-driven, and self-service copy management solution can make your life easier with this 90-day free trial. Click on the link to go to the download page: AppSync Free Trial

SUMMARY The VMAX3 has the scale to support thousands of databases and users at a higher density and greater savings per datacenter floor tile than any other hybrid array. In an Infobrief by IDC they found the hyperconsolidation savings with the VMAX3 offers a 30% TCO savings. Service Level Objectives provide the elasticity to dynamically scale databases and applications up and down service levels as the business needs. Initial database placement can start with bronze that has the best $/GB and move to faster levels where the value is $/IOPS. In a recent EMC paper the diamond level was able to drive more than 146,000 transactions per minutes which is on par with all-flash arrays.

The VMAX3 can also be configured as an all-flash array to drive the highest IOPS and sub-millisecond latencies. The VMAX3 all-flash configuration was tested in a recent paper and EMC found an Oracle OLTP workload using SLOB over 145,000 IOPS were generated with sub-millisecond latencies and that’s with the VMAX3 storage cache disabled. A second test with the VMAX3 storage cache enabled generated 200,000 plus IOPS at even lower sub-millisecond latencies. Using the VMAX3 as an all-flash array is ideal for IT Organizations that want the sub-millisecond performance with the proven enterprise features of VMAX3.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c can increase productivity by 75% and with the VMAX3 free plug-in the DBA’s gains access to storage performance and configuration metrics even further increasing their productivity. The plug-in installs in just minutes and turns storage monitoring into a self-service platform. DBAs can access a broad range of indicators like:

• Reads per second • Writes per second

• Reads MB per second • Writes MB per second

• Throughput • Array Incidents

• Database Hierarchy • Response Times

• IOPS

Hours of performance analysis and troubleshooting time are saved because the DBA can analyze database and storage performance together. Collaboration between the DBA and Storage Administrator is strengthened as both are able to view the same indicators which eliminates having to conduct two separate performance reviews. Risk

Give mission-critical Oracle workloads what they demand with EMC VMAX3 enterprise arrays. Scale up database performance and scale out database capacity, cost effectively.

Data Sheet: EMC VMAX3 Family

Data Sheet: EMC VMAX3 Family Software Suites

Spec Sheet: EMC VMAX3 Family: VMAX 100K, 200K, 400K

Why VMAX3 for Cloud Infrastructures

Analyst Report: Silverton Consulting VMAX3 SPC-2 Report

Demo: EMC VMAX3 Service Level Objectives

View All Resources

Solution Overview 15

is also lowered as critical issues can be resolved faster and DBAs can set alerts to be notified in the case of a problem.

Database Storage Analyzer (DSA) makes the VMAX3 an application aware platform and enables the DBA to impact database-to-storage performance though hinting. DBAs can immediately see storage performance in the dashboard using metrics that indicate health. DSA picks up where the EM 12c plug-in leaves off by enabling the DBA to drill into the database and investigate how tables, indexes, and other objects are performing on the array. For example, in the database objects view DSA intelligently sorts objects by the most accumulated I/O time making easy for the selecting objects for hinting. Using DSA the DBA can provide even higher service levels and better support.

The foundation of Database-as-a-Service is the capability to automate all database provisioning and all aspects of lifecycle management. AppSync connects to a VMAX3 array and presents to the DBA team storage features to protect, copy and repurpose databases. DBAs can use the Gold (local & remote), Silver (remote), and Bronze (local) to replicate databases and applications. Here are some of the findings in a recent Oracle AppSync Lifecycle management paper:

• It only took 4 minutes and 15 seconds to protect the database in hot backup mode using the bronze service plan

• It only took 3 minutes and 41 seconds to protect the second database without hot backup mode using the bronze plan

• It took 15 minutes to create a 1st generation and 2nd generation copy of a production database

• It took 7 minutes to remove a database and 11 minutes to recreate another database

Figure 22: VMAX3 Cloud Data Platform for Oracle Database-as-a-Service

Drive innovation by using the VMAX3 Service Level Objects and tight integration with Oracle to rapidly deliver databases. DBAs can monitor and manage all aspects of databases through an automated infrastructure that gives them access to storage features. Costs go down as the VMAX offers the lowest $/GB and huge space savings as database copies take no initial capacity. This is a complete Database-as-a-Service infrastructure with over 20 years of built-in engineering proving your IT organization the maximum scalability and flexibility.

Solution Overview 16

EMC DATABASE COMMUNITIES We invite you to use our database communities and to become a member. This paper and a library of other papers are available on the database communities’ web sites, along with a number of discussions and other informative content such as videos and podcasts. Here are some of the communities we recommend:

The DBA Society: Visit here to quickly find technical papers on databases. For example, we have papers on best practices, database performance tuning, backup & recovery, and continuous availability. Start here for all your technical interests.

Everything Oracle at EMC: Visit this community for papers, discussions, videos, and podcasts focused on Oracle databases. EMC has a team of engineers monitoring this community and answering questions posed, usually within 24hours. Visit this community if you are interested in EMC solutions for Oracle.

Everything Microsoft at EMC: This community covers all Microsoft products making it the ideal place to find information on the Microsoft technology you have an interest in. EMC has solutions for Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, System Center, Cloud, Hyper-V and much more. Visit this community for all your Microsoft interests.

Everything SAP at EMC: Is your company using SAP? If so, this community has a wealth of information on EMC solutions for SAP. For example, a new paper was recently posted there regarding best practices for using SAP Hana with EMC VMAX. Visit this community if you are interested in EMC solutions for SAP.

EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2015 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. 12/15 Handout H14704

EMC believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

CONTACT US To learn more about how EMC products, services, and solutions can help solve your business and IT challenges, contact your local representative or authorized reseller, visit www.emc.com, or explore and compare products in the EMC Store.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sam Lucido is Director of the Database Technical Marketing and has twenty years of database experience. Sam manages a team that writes and socializes EMC solutions for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, and other open source databases.

Special thanks to the contributors: Craig Grant, Jason Kotsaftis, Yaron Dar, Praneetha Manthravadi, George O’Toole, David Atkins, Simon Zhao, and Indranil Chakrabarti