Home > Workload Solutions > Oracle > White Papers > Oracle Database 19c Best Practices on Dell PowerEdge Servers and PowerStore T Model Arrays > PowerStore: Add Multiple LUNs
Storage configuration can directly influence database performance. This best practice validates that adding multiple storage LUNs for ASM disk groups optimizes database performance.
Table 8. Best practice category
Category | PowerStore Storage |
Product | PowerStore 5000T |
Type of best practice | Performance Optimization |
Day and value | Day 1, Highly recommended |
Overview
To determine if a best practice provides value, it had to be tested against a baseline configuration of the database to validate performance. In the baseline configuration for database volumes, the data, redo, and FRA disk group each consists of one LUN. The following table shows the baseline volume groups and LUNs configuration.
Another benefit of the baseline storage configuration is that it followed the principle of separating database files into dedicated volume groups. For example, the data files, online redo logs, and FRA files are in the same volume group but separate from grid volume group and temp volume group. This allows the DBA to only snapshot the database without including the Grid and Temp files which are not needed for a functional database snapshot. This also provides space savings if replication is used.
Table 9. Baseline storage group configuration
Volume Group | Volume Name | VMware Datastore | Volume size (GB) | Notes |
orabp22-vm1-os | orabp22-vm1-os | orabp22-vm1-os-ds | 400 | Operating System |
orabp22-vm1-grid | orabp22-vm1-grid-001 | orabp22-vm1-grid-001-ds | 50 | GRID |
orabp22-vm1-grid-002 | orabp22-vm1-grid-002-ds | 50 | ||
orabp22-vm1-grid-003 | orabp22-vm1-grid-003-ds | 50 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1 | orabp22-vm1-db1-data-001 | orabp22-vm1-data-001-ds | 1000 | Data files |
orabp22-vm1-db1-redo-001 | orabp22-vm1-redo-001-ds | 55 | Online redo logs | |
orabp22-vm1-db1-fra-001 | orabp22-vm1-fra-001-ds | 60 | Flash Recovery Area | |
orabp22-vm1-temp | orabp22-vm1-db1-temp | orabp22-vm1-temp-ds | 500 | Temp files |
The following table shows the optimized PowerStore storage configuration. The volume groups remain intact, but additional LUNs were added for the DATA, REDO, and FRA disk groups. Using multiple LUNs for the most active portion of an Oracle database can improve performance. The primary benefit of using multiple LUNs is that the operating system creates an I/O queue path per LUN. The following table shows the optimized PowerStore storage configuration for the Oracle database. In the optimized storage configuration, data, redo, and FRA disk groups each has four LUNs. There are four times the number of I/O queue paths compared to the baseline configuration.
Volume Group | Volume Name | VMware Datastore | Volume size (GB) | Notes |
orabp22-vm1-os | orabp22-vm1-os | orabp22-vm1-os-ds | 400 | Operating System |
orabp22-vm1-grid | orabp22-vm1-grid-001 | orabp22-vm1-grid-001-ds | 50 | GRID |
orabp22-vm1-grid-002 | orabp22-vm1-grid-002-ds | 50 | ||
orabp22-vm1-grid-003 | orabp22-vm1-grid-003-ds | 50 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1 | orabp22-vm1-db1-data-001 | orabp22-vm1-data-001-ds | 1000 | Data files |
orabp22-vm1-db1-data-002 | orabp22-vm1-data-002-ds | 1000 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-data-003 | orabp22-vm1-data-003-ds | 1000 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-data-004 | orabp22-vm1-data-004-ds | 1000 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-redo-001 | orabp22-vm1-redo-001-ds | 55 | Online redo logs | |
orabp22-vm1-db1-redo-002 | orabp22-vm1-redo-002-ds | 55 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-redo-003 | orabp22-vm1-redo-003-ds | 55 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-redo-004 | orabp22-vm1-redo-004-ds | 55 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-fra-001 | orabp22-vm1-fra-001-ds | 60 | FRA files | |
orabp22-vm1-db1-fra-002 | orabp22-vm1-fra-002-ds | 60 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-fra-003 | orabp22-vm1-fra-003-ds | 60 | ||
orabp22-vm1-db1-fra-004 | orabp22-vm1-fra-004-ds | 60 | ||
orabp22-vm1-temp | orabp22-vm1-db1-temp | orabp22-vm1-temp-ds | 500 | Temp files |
Once the additional LUNs are created, these LUNS can be added to the ASM disk groups. Sizing the LUNs for each ASM disk group should be based on the size of the database. The PowerStore storage array has thin provisioning feature; hence it is recommended that the LUNs be created larger than required for any future growth. However, to truly benefit using thin-provisioned LUNs on the PowerStore, the use of Oracle “autoextend” clause when creating tablespaces is required.
For detailed PowerStore best practices with Oracle database, see Oracle Database Best Practices on PowerStore.
Recommendation
The results indicated that having multiple LUNs for the ASM disk groups increased performance significantly, compared to the baseline, for the following metrics:
Based on these results, this practice is considered as a Day 1, Highly Recommended best practice and should be part of the initial storage provisioning.