Forum Discussion

brucemcgill_n1's avatar
brucemcgill_n1
Level 4
13 years ago

VCS Clustering and Virualization on Oracle Sun SPARC T4-2 servers

Hi All,

I will shortly be installing and configuring Veritas Cluster Server 6.0 on Solaris 10 U10 for Oracle E-Business Suite on 2 Sun SPARC T4-2 servers. Please suggest:

1. Should I use ZFS for root filesystem or UFS or VxFS?
2. Should I mirror using hardware or software RAID?
3. I will have to use either Oracle VM Server for SPARC or containers? Which is preferred?
4. I hope there no problems in using Veritas Cluster File System (CFS) for Oracle Database files. If I configure the application in non-global zones, I want them available inside the virtualized environment. The SAN storage will be provided by NetAPP. I also hope I will not face problems in configuring I/O fencing. Again, should I use Veritas DMP or Sun MPXIO?
5. The entire storage volumes will be replicated to the DR site using NetAPP storage based replication.

Best Regards,
Bruce

business continuity
Cluster Server
Configuring
  • mikebounds's avatar
    mikebounds
    13 years ago

    See answers below:

    1. If you only want one Logical Volume Manager product on the system so you want to mirror root disks using Veritas VM, then you need to use ufs (I don't think solaris supports using vxfs), however using VM on root disks makes it a little harder to upgrade Solaris O/S so a lot of customers will use Solaris ZFS for root disks.
    2. If you want mirroring or RAID using just one array then I would use hardware.  If you want to mirror across local arrays then I would use Veriats Volume Manager (Software host based mirroring)
    3. I have not seen an Oracle VM server VCS agent, so unless you can locate one you will need to use Solaris Containers as there definately is support for this (VCS Zone agent)
    4. No problems using CFS.  VCS can control applications in non-global zones.  You can use NFS mounts.  You can only use I/O fencing with SCSI III disks (you can not use with NFS storage).  I would use DMP and sometimes you will have to use DMP and this is dependent on the array you are using - see latest HCL (http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH170013)
    5. IF you are using VCS on DR site then you will need a VCS agent for NetAPP storage based replication.  There is a Netapp SnapMirror VCS agent if this is the replciation product you are using - see https://sort.symantec.com/agents/detail/4615

    Mike

  • mikebounds's avatar
    mikebounds
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    See answers below:

    1. If you only want one Logical Volume Manager product on the system so you want to mirror root disks using Veritas VM, then you need to use ufs (I don't think solaris supports using vxfs), however using VM on root disks makes it a little harder to upgrade Solaris O/S so a lot of customers will use Solaris ZFS for root disks.
    2. If you want mirroring or RAID using just one array then I would use hardware.  If you want to mirror across local arrays then I would use Veriats Volume Manager (Software host based mirroring)
    3. I have not seen an Oracle VM server VCS agent, so unless you can locate one you will need to use Solaris Containers as there definately is support for this (VCS Zone agent)
    4. No problems using CFS.  VCS can control applications in non-global zones.  You can use NFS mounts.  You can only use I/O fencing with SCSI III disks (you can not use with NFS storage).  I would use DMP and sometimes you will have to use DMP and this is dependent on the array you are using - see latest HCL (http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH170013)
    5. IF you are using VCS on DR site then you will need a VCS agent for NetAPP storage based replication.  There is a Netapp SnapMirror VCS agent if this is the replciation product you are using - see https://sort.symantec.com/agents/detail/4615

    Mike

  • martin2176's avatar
    martin2176
    Level 4
    13 years ago

    sparc T4 is not on HCL yet.

    Solaris 11 is not supported yet

    as of 2/22/2012

  • brucemcgill_n1's avatar
    brucemcgill_n1
    Level 4
    13 years ago

    Thanks Mike.

    Regarding Oracle VM server, I would like to setup SFCFSHA with Oracle E-Business Suite inside the Guest Domains of two T4-2 hosts. The cluster software will not be installed in the control domain.

    Because I have to limit the number of CPUs to run Oracle E-Business suite and also I can install Solaris 11 in the future on other Guest Domains, I was thinking of Oracle VM Server for SPARC.

    I was going through a whitepaper: Setting up Sun Logical Domains for deploying Veritas Storage Foundation for Oracle RAC White Paper located at https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/setting-sun-logical-domains-deploying-veritas-storage-foundation-oracle-rac-white-paper

    Although I will not be setting up Oracle RAC, I would still like to use SFCFS for Oracle Database files for E-Business Suite software.

    Please comment.

    Regards,

    Bruce

  • mikebounds's avatar
    mikebounds
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Using Oracle RAC means you can access the same database from multiple noes and Oracle on SFCFS does NOT give you this.  However, many peope use RAC to only access database from one node at a time as it gives you very quick failover times - if this is your case then SFCFS is a good (and usually cheaper) solution.  For Normal (non CFS) Oracle failover the things that take time to failover are diskgroups, mounts and Oracle (IP fails over too, but this is very quick).  With CFS, you Only need to failover Oracle as diskgroups are imported on all nodes and filesystems are mounted on all nodes.

    I looked up Oracle VM server and found out this is just a rebranded name for Solaris LDOMs so this is fine in VCS.  I think this is a very confusing rename as I had assumed that Oracle VM server had something to do with databases as the single word "Oracle" is often used to mean "Oracle Database"

    Mike