Oracle Exadata Implementation Strategy HHow to Implement Exadata In-house Introduction Oracle Exadata The Oracle Exadata is a database machine, which has now been present since 2008. A number of financial establishments started productively taking advantage of Exadata at the same time as its launch. If your organization has still not shifted to Oracle Exadata, you're missing out on one of the most popular database engineering systems. Formatted: No bullets or numbering Why opt for Oracle Exadata? The answer for this question can easily be figured out in this article Oracle Exadata is a database machine, which is very easy to deploy. It s going to provide an extraordinary hosting solution for hosting the Oracle Database, while delivering the highest efficiency ratio. Exadata is effortlessly used with Oracle database software and hardware server equipment. The Importance of Using and Implementing Exadata In order to reap all the well-built benefits of Exadata, you will need to make use of it by implementing its high-performing infrastructure first. Formatted: Highlight Basically, Exadata is composed of database servers, called Oracle Exadata Storage Servers. These servers are frameworks, which are used for storage networking and information. This database machine is made up of a design that features industry-standard servers and an intelligent Exadata Storage. The state of the art infrastructure of Exadata uses flash technology, with a high pace InfiniBand fabric. The architecture of Exadata provides customers with 100% database portability, along with a massive surge in the returns on all their investments. Question: Why is implementation of Oracle Exadata so important? Implementation plays a key role in the execution of Oracle Exadata. Without implementing, you will remain stuck at one of the first block of the phase, which is commonly known as the migration stage. Question: Why do so many people want to implement Exadata on their own? A number of Oracle customers are currently trying to implement Oracle Exadata on their own. There can be a number of reasons for this. Most of the times, they insist in working on their own, simply because they are unwilling to spend a substantial amount of resources on outsourcing an Oracle expert. Besides this, it is actually expensive to appoint a genuine Exadata consultant.
Exadata Migration Vs implementation It s very important to create awareness of the difference that exists between Migration and Implementation, for the ease of each Exadata client. It s essential to differentiate that: The migration process of Oracle Exadata is an essential phase, which is included inside the implementation strategy. However, it does NOT in anyway, denote that implementation can be carried out with just this one single segment alone. Many people commit this blunder unsuspectingly, ending up without any idea of what route to take next with Exadata. Addressing the Problem with a Solution Exadata Implementation To save such clients from redundant obstacles, the only positive solution is to follow a proper and proven following the Exadata implementation strategy. The strategy itself is made up of 5 implementation phases. Before going ahead with the implementation strategy and its accomplishment, here are some of the disadvantages of incorrect Exadata implementation. Formatted: No bullets or numbering What happen if you don t follow a proper Exadata Implementation Strategy Disadvantages of incomplete Exadata implementation Question: What if Exadata implementation strategy is not followed or implementation is carried out unsuccessfully? Apart from all the advantages listed above, if an Oracle Exadata customer or organization don t follow a proper Exadata is unable to implementation strategy Exadata in-house it s most likely that they will remain stuck with only accomplishing the database migration or data migrationphase. Implementation Strategy Overview In order to have success with Exadata, you have to be able to understand, grasp and apply ALL the five Exadata Implementation phases correctly. We have described the complete strategy in detail, which consists of five separate steps or phases of Exadata implementation. These implementing phases are Analyzing, Migrating, Enhancements, Testing and the Final Cutover respectively. Formatted: No bullets or numbering Basically, each Exadata implementation should start with analyzing target databases. Then move towards migrating of data, using suitable migration methods. Once data migration is completed, there is a need to observe some best practices of implementing Exadata. These practices ensure that you are able to achieve extreme performance from your Exadata machine. Each migration should also go through multiple testing cycles before cutover. How to Implement Exadata In-house Without Experience? The next query to be addressed is how can a customer, who presently has zero experience on Exadata, possibly implement it successfully?
To assist such inexperienced Oracle Exadata customers, here are five implementation phases that were discussed above. These phases, if followed step by step, are going to make the implementation strategy run smoothly and trouble-free. Five Phases for Implementing Exadata The following implementation strategy is essential to make sure you are properly executing the Exadata transition process. Formatted: Heading 1, Left Phase # 1: Analyzeing Basically, analyzing is the first step of Exadata database implementation. You have to analyze your target database and make sure you are using the right methods of migration. Plan your pre-migration practice steps, and refrain from beginning without a well-planned research. For best results, use the following analyzing techniques: 1. First analyze the current system you are using. Monitor your database size, application size, I/O Throughput and the memory footprint. Perform capacity planning next. While you are carrying out capacity planning, understand the capacity of your existing environment, and then identify the proper amount of Oracle Exadata Storage Server Cells. Also, ensure that the post-failure capacity is sufficient for tolerating failures. Remember to analyze the OVM, DBRM, FRA, and ASM Redundancy as well. 2. Then based on your analysis make important deployment decisions like, Do you need to virtualize Exadata Machine? Do you need to implement resource management? What ASM Redundancy level should you choose? And how big should be your FRA? 3. Migration strategy should be discussed in early phases of Exadata implementation. Map out each database migration with a particular migration method like Golden Gate, Export Import or data Guard. You should also inform business users and other stake holders about upcoming migration, so they can plan for outage. 4. High availability options should be discussed early based on SLA requirements. 5. Testing is an important part of Exadata Implementation, make sure to discuss testing options with stakeholders. 3. There are several methods and migration strategies available for you to select from. Make sure you are judging each database migration and weighing their pros and cons. The second step in the implementation of Exadata is described below, which is known as the migration phase. Before settling on any one migration strategy, keep in mind that your particular procedure of migration is based on your needs. There are several migration methods and migration strategies available for you to select from. Make sure you are judging each database migration and weighing their pros and cons. The second step in the implementation of Exadata is described below, which is known as the migration phase. Before settling on
any one migration strategy, keep in mind that your particular procedure of migration is based on your needs. The Oracle Exadata migration phase refers to typically moving Oracle databases or data DB servers to the Exadata Database Machines. Once the analyzing phase is done and dusted, you need to start executing one specific method ofmethod of migration from numerous migration methodsstrategies. Here are two of the most widely used Exadata migration categoriesstrategies: 1. Logical Migration 2. Physical Migration Logical Migration Logical migrations consist of data extractions from source database (DB) to the platform-independent format. This is followed by data insertion or load into the targeted DB. Logical migrations can be are performed from almost all the Oracle database version on Oracle versions 11.1 or above, and include the following strategies. 1. Logical Standby The Oracle Logical Standby migration technique is generally best known for the following benefits: Min Downtime, Adjusting ASM AU size to 4 Mb, Implement physical changes to database during migrationintermediate operational investment. 2. Golden Gate Using Golden Gate will also offer many benefits for the customers who want to perform DB migration. This strategy is known for its transition flexibility. Any database from a platform, endian format or Oracle version 9.1 can be effortlessly migrated online. Golden gate s DB migration usually requires almost a zero downtime. Benefits include: Min Downtime, Online migration from varied source systems, a zero data loss and fallback plan 3. Data Pump The Data Pump approach is the most common and widely used strategy for migration of database. With data pump, you can get any Oracle version 10.1 or above, of any system source to migrate easily into Exadata. This method is also preferred, if you want to compress or partition your tables database during migration. It provides you the migration benefits of: Simple migration, Full Data Type Support and Cross Platform Support. Physical Migration If you want to decide in favor of the physical migration methods, check out the following physical migration approaches. 1. Physical Standby The physical standby database typically requires very little downtime, when migrating from an old Exadata machine to a new one. It simply needs you to create and configure the Data Guard onto the target Exadata database machine. When ready, you simply have to perform the switchover for completing the migration.
This strategy works well for a same release, with supported cross platforms. It provides you the migration benefits of: Min Downtime, Whole Database, Block By Block Copy, 2. Transportable Database (TTE) The Transposable database is the best type of strategy for migrating towards a different platform, with the same endian format. 3. Transportable Tablespace (TDB) Works best when you want to migrate to a different platform, with a different endian format and a different release. Phase # 3: EnhancementsOptimization If you really want to take full advantage of the Exadata Machine, then while carrying out your Exadata migration, make sure you are looking out for some of the following enhancement features: Compression, Partitioning, Parallelism, Flash Cache, Offloading / Smart Scan, Resource Management (DBRM & IORM). For instance: Compression of Oracle Exadata not only reduces your storage footprint but also improves performance. Partitioning will also improve performance; provide you maintenance advantage and increased availability. Parallel execution will help you with performance, same goes for properly caching tables to Exadata Flash Cache. Even though offloading and smart scan are enabled by default but make sure they are happening. Exadata Machine does a great job managing resources by itself but if planning to use Exadata as a consolidation platform, you can implement resource management through DBRM & IORM. Following are detail description of important Database and Exadata features, help you achieve extreme performance from Exadata Machine Compression (Oracle) Regardless of Exadata, Oracle has two native compression types. Basic Table Compression, and OLTP Compression. You will not get good compression ratio with Basic table compression and it will not support DML operations. But you can get reasonable compression ratio with OLTP compression ratio and it will also support DML operations. Please note that there will be some overhead and you need advance compression license to use OLTP compression. The OLTP Compression Supports all types of data manipulation operations,2x 4X, overhead writing data, no overhead for read operation, blocks are compressed in batch mode. Compression (Exadata) Hybrid columnar compression comes with Exadata s own compression system. You can get extremely good compression ratio with Hybrid Columnar compression but OLTP operations are not supported in it. Oracle has also provided a DBMS package for you to estimate storage saving in case you want to use HCC Compression.
Types of Exadata Compression include Hybrid Columnar Compression and DBMS_COMPRESSION. savings, archival (low & high), 10x 15x average storage savings, it can be offloaded to storage, improve i/o scan, cold or historical data. Hybrid columnar compression comes with Exadata s own compression system. You can get extremely good compression ratio with Hybrid Columnar compression but OLTP operations are not supported in it. Oracle has also provided a DBMS package for you to estimate storage saving in case you want to use HCC Compression. Oracle support many types of partitioning techniques including range, list, composite and hash. Partitioning can provide you many benefits like better performance, high availability and ease of maintenance. Partitioning can also help you achieve better performance through partition pruning. You can also perform certain maintenance tasks like truncate a partition. Partitioning can also improve the performance of multi-table joins, by using a technique known as partition-wise joins. Gather stats and rebuilding a local index just for a particular partition, this will hence provide you ease of maintenance and high availability. Parallelism You can execute your queries in parallel to speed up your load. If you are not already using parallel query feature, you should look into enabling this feature. You can enable parallel query execution at object level or you can use SQL hint. You can also let Oracle determine the degree of parallelism based on a set of criteria and some initialization parameter settings. This feature is called AUTO DOP and it will automatically parallelize your queries based on a threshold. The threshold that is prominently mentioned above is set by parallel min time threshold. The default of this parameter is 10 seconds. If you want to run more statements in parallel, make sure to reduce that number so that more plans qualify for parallel evaluation. Flash Cache Exadata comes with Tera bytes of flash cache. It also named Smart Flash Cache, because it has an ability to move data in and out from cache based on usage. It s enabled by default, so you don t have to configure anything to enable it, but you can turn it off and encourage caching a particular object by alter table statement. Another cache option, with the name of Write Back Flash cache provides the ability to cache write I/Os directly to PCI flash in addition to read I/O s. If any application is write intensive and if one finds significant waits for "free buffer waits" or high IO times to check for write bottleneck in AWR reports, then write back flash cache is the best suitable option. Offloading and Smart Scan Extreme performance of Exadata is accomplished by offloading and smart scan.
Offloading means some of Oracles processes are offloaded to Exadata Storage nodes. Oracle processes that can be offloaded to storage nodes are incremental backups, Data File creation, decompression and decryption. Whereas Oracle smart scan refers to an Exadata capability of performing projections and predicate filtering operations, when mean storage layer will only return required rows and column to database nodes, hence reducing I/O and network traffic between storage server and database nodes. There are some pre-requisites for smart scan like direct path read and full table scan, so make sure smart scan is appropriate for your database. Offloading: Incremental Backup, File Creation, Decompression, and Decryption Smart Scan: Full table scan, Directly path read, V$SQL. Resource Management (DBRM & IORM) If you are planning to use Exadata as a consolidated platform, you might want to implementing some level of resource management, so you get consistent performance across different workload and databases. You can use the Oracle native resource management tool, called DBRM to manage CPU utilization, parallel queueing and long running queries. You can also use IORM Exadata native utility to manage I/O throughput and latency. DBRM Offers: CPU management, parallel queuing, long running queries. IORM (Exadata) Offers: Balance, high throughput, low latency. Phase # 4: Testing One of the most essential parts of the Exadata implementation is the Testing of your migration process. Ideally, you should have a testing plan ready before you set out to perform implementation of the chosen method of migration. There are multiple types of testing plans you can carry out in this stage. It s most important to perform the tests because you will be able to have a follow up on all the critical migrations processes and transition routes. Your Exadata implementation testing strategy should include the following plans and tools: Test Plans (Performance Test, Failover Test, Identify Critical Processes). Capture Performance Statistics (AWR, ASH, SQL Tuning Set, SPA, RAT). Validate Exadata Configuration (Exadata Check, ORACHK). You can capture performance stats using tools like AWR, ASH, SQL Performance analyzer, Real Application Testing and compare with your baseline. Also validate Exadata configuration through running Exachk. Log and remediate any issues you encountered during this phase.
Phase # 5: Cutover The final strategy is the cutover. If you are able to plan your cutover segment properly, your Exadata implementation will be completed. Simply make sure you have a backup system and a fallback plan, just in case if you encounter any difficulty after the cutover. Depending on the migration method you have selected, and your maintenance windows, you will probably have to sync your target database. For cutover strategy, look into the following observation techniques: Backup Source System, Sync Target System (Optional), Validate Target Database, Cutover, Validate, Remediate (Optional), Fallback Plan. Best Practices of Implementing Exadata Described above was the practical Oracle Exadata in-house implementation strategy. If you follow the techniques and execute your implementation step-by-step, you will undoubtedly be able to gain all the advantages of Exadata. When you are actively seeking, or analyzing a migration strategy, don t forget to consider the fact: There are multiple ways you can use for the migration of your database to Exadata, but the Best way will ultimately depend on your needs, your environment and your target goals. Keep in mind that your ultimate Exadata implementation goal must be to: Move your data, simplify your database, and optimize for better resourcing and stability. Good Luck!