ESXi host configuration
We configured the PowerEdge R840 database server as follows:
- Installed ESXi 6.5 by using the Dell EMC customized ISO image (Dell Version: A04, Build# 5310538), which is available on Dell EMC Online Support at VMware ESXi 6.5.
- Zoned two dual-port 16 Gb/s HBAs, four initiators in total, and configured them with the Unity 650F front-end FC ports for high-bandwidth, load-balanced, and highly available SAN traffic. For the recommended FC connectivity and zoning best practices, see FC fabric connectivity and zoning. For optimal performance, the two HBA cards are populated in slots 2 and 5 of the R840 server.
- Configured one 1 GbE rNDC or LOM port for the management traffic and two 10 GbE ports for the Oracle public traffic. For more details on the virtual networking design, see Virtual network design. For optimal performance, we installed the two 10 GbE network adapters in slots 3 and 6 of the R840 server.
- Created a single VM with RHEL 7.4 as the guest operating system for the virtual Oracle standalone databases. For more details about the VM properties and best practices, see VM configuration.
We configured, monitored, and maintained the ESXi host, virtual networking, and the VM by using VMware vSphere Web Client and VCSA, which is deployed as a VM on the management server.
Multipath configuration
We configured multipathing on the ESXi 6.5 host according to the following best practices:
- Use vSphere Native Multipathing (NMP) as the multipathing software.
- Retained the default selection of round-robin for the native path selection policy (PSP) on the Unity volumes that are presented to the ESXi host.
- Change the NMP round-robin path switching frequency from the default value (1,000 I/O packets) to 1.