Oracle Exadata, or About the Use of Engineered Systems (Part 1)
I want to start this article with a link to an important study that was done four years ago by PAC Consulting for Compuware. The results of the study can be found here , it concerned the performance of solutions based on SAP systems. Analysts interviewed the management of 588 companies in Belgium, the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, the USA and France, and found that 43% of users of the SAP web portal are dissatisfied with its performance. Of the large companies (with more than 2 thousand users), one third is dissatisfied, and 48% among the rest. Many said that poor application performance is a serious potential financial risk to enterprises.
Just do not think that I am writing this to cast a shadow on the SAP company. Oracle and SAP have been cooperating in the IT market for more than 20 years, since 1988. The largest number of SAP application installations for large customers in the world is made using an Oracle database.
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So, first of all, the technological infrastructure on which they are running affects the performance of SAP applications. Compuware notes that SAP software works adequately on a stable and reliable IT infrastructure - which includes computers, a database, and network connections. It means that it is extremely important for someone to produce a stable and reliable IT infrastructure on which applications will run.
Oracle has continuously developed functionality to improve the speed, security and reliability of corporate systems. In 1992, the first SAP R / 3 release for Oracle appeared, and in 1999 the companies signed a commercial and service partnership agreement, which was extended in 2010. When Oracle acquired Sun in 2009, it transferred its Exadata software and hardware systems for business intelligence, database consolidation and online transaction processing to the Sun platform. Literally two years later, a version of the software and hardware complex Oracle Exadata for SAP, and then Oracle Exalogic and Oracle SuperCluster, appeared.
What is (oracle) engineered systems ?
The idea behind the concept (oracle) of engineered systems is that modern software and hardware are very complex, and no matter how careful the research that your company undertakes before purchasing equipment, there is no guarantee that they will have enough skills on the choice of the optimal and at the same time scalable configuration. It is difficult for customers to build optimal IT infrastructures, it takes a long time to find the right solution in terms of storage systems, in terms of network equipment, in terms of computing resources, through trial and error to build a cluster configuration, etc.
In actual fact, the customer wants to buy not the hardware and software, but the solution to their problems. And if the customer is going to purchase Oracle software, then the choice of the most efficient hardware configuration for Oracle and solutions based on Oracle should also be trusted to Oracle.
Your server room BEFORE and AFTER the appearance of (oracle) engineered systems .
How are (oracle) engineered systems being developed? Hardware and software are designed, tested and debugged together. And if you know which applications will work on which equipment, then you can achieve the highest performance, with less chance of "surprises" from the incompatibility of components, and, of course, it becomes easier to provide support. Customers do not have to select and optimize components - servers, disks, processors, network components, memory, etc. Install and configure software, test the performance of each server, do their subsequent updates, etc. also not necessary. Significantly simplified maintenance of IT infrastructure.
Today, all Oracle software and hardware systems are certified to work with SAP applications and are ready for cloud computing, for example, for organizing a private cloud - and if we are talking about implementing solutions on a software and hardware platform for SAP applications, then most likely private cloud.
Oracle offers a complete solution stack, starting with operating system virtualization hardware and a database layer for SAP applications built on best practices from Oracle. For three decades of Oracle global practice, a large knowledge base has been accumulated, in which all the problems that customers may have are consolidated. After analyzing this huge knowledge base, Oracle has developed a ready-made, balanced, pre-configured, configured hardware and software solution that is serviceable for hosting databases on an Oracle platform.
Oracle Exadata complexes are designed to organize Oracle database services. Oracle Exalogic - machine for application servers, including Oracle Applications, SAP ERP and others. Oracle Database Appliance complexes are designed to deploy Oracle database services along with an application — for example, with the central instance of SAP ERP. Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance allows you to deploy all the necessary services, this software and hardware complex is certified, including by SAP. Next, I will focus on the Oracle Exadata solution for SAP.
Finally, the Oracle SuperCluster M6-32 is built on the SPARC platform, and this is one of the most powerful machines on the market today — 32 processors, 384 cores, 3072 threads; 140 thousand SAP users, the official test result is 793 930 SAPS. Details about Oracle SuperCluster - in the next article.
Oracle Exadata Oracle Exadata Eights Rack is a minor configuration solution. It includes two compute modules on the Intel X86 platform, two database servers. Most customers use 10 or 16 GB of classic Fiber Channel servers for switching storage systems and classic Fiber Channel servers, but this solution is fraught with serious scaling response delays, so Oracle uses a 40 GB high-speed InfiniBand network for switching. Infiniband has minimal latency and provides minimal response time with a large number of users.
The storage system used by Oracle Exadata is called Exadata Storage Server, and is significantly different from the classic solutions. Briefly, the Exadata Storage Server feature is that the system “understands” what works with the Oracle database, optimizes the transfer of blocks from the storage system level to the database level, and ensures that part of database operations, including SQL queries, are performed at the storage systems. Thus, Exadata Storage Server provides a reduction in traffic from the storage system to the database level, and provides the highest overall system performance.
Exadata Storage Server uses the X4-2 server, which has two 6-core processors, 96 GB of memory, a PCI Flash Card for I / O acceleration, and 1.2 Tbyte or 4 TB hard drives for long-term data storage.
Exadata Database Server has two 12-core processors, the amount of RAM is 256 or 512 GB. All interfaces: both network and InfiniBand are duplicated.
The Oracle Exadata Quarter, Oracle Exadata Half and Oracle Exadata Full Rack are higher configurations of the Oracle Exadata Database Machine than the Oracle Exadata Eighth. At the initial stage, the client can purchase Eighth or Quarter, and then, as necessary, scale the configuration to any more powerful standard as needed, without having to think about network capacities, server access to the storage system, etc., all this is decided in advance , the client only needs a classic Ethernet network.
In Russia, the most popular solution is the Oracle Exadata Quarter, it includes two database servers (48 cores in total), 512 GB RAM or 1 TB, duplicated by InfiniBand, three storage systems, 9.6 TB PCI Flash Cash, and file storage databases with a usable capacity from 19 TB (fast disks) to 63 TB (high capacity disks), taking into account duplication, reorganization of RAID groups, etc.
Performance is something for which everything was started, so it deserves a separate discussion.
Once again we will stop on Oracle Exadata Quarter. Let's imagine that we have only regular disks and no SSD disks and PCI Flash Cash. In this case, 50 thousand input-output operations is a full cabinet with disks. PCI Flash Cash provides 570 thousand read operations and 420 thousand write operations per second.
How is this achieved? The fact is that modern databases of SAP applications, as a rule, do not exceed 15 TB by volume. Such a database almost completely fits into the fast cache. But even if the database occupies 50 TB, then almost all of its working part falls into the PCI Flash Cash because the average system updates less than 10% of the data, and a high-loaded one, as a rule, does not exceed 20% of the data.
These are the most general information about Oracle Exadata that I wanted to share with you. In the next article, we’ll take a closer look at how Exadata works, talk about the maintenance and technical support of Exadata, tell you a little more about the Oracle SuperCluster and focus on the actual implementations of the system.
Just do not think that I am writing this to cast a shadow on the SAP company. Oracle and SAP have been cooperating in the IT market for more than 20 years, since 1988. The largest number of SAP application installations for large customers in the world is made using an Oracle database.
')
So, first of all, the technological infrastructure on which they are running affects the performance of SAP applications. Compuware notes that SAP software works adequately on a stable and reliable IT infrastructure - which includes computers, a database, and network connections. It means that it is extremely important for someone to produce a stable and reliable IT infrastructure on which applications will run.
Oracle has continuously developed functionality to improve the speed, security and reliability of corporate systems. In 1992, the first SAP R / 3 release for Oracle appeared, and in 1999 the companies signed a commercial and service partnership agreement, which was extended in 2010. When Oracle acquired Sun in 2009, it transferred its Exadata software and hardware systems for business intelligence, database consolidation and online transaction processing to the Sun platform. Literally two years later, a version of the software and hardware complex Oracle Exadata for SAP, and then Oracle Exalogic and Oracle SuperCluster, appeared.
What is (oracle) engineered systems ?
The idea behind the concept (oracle) of engineered systems is that modern software and hardware are very complex, and no matter how careful the research that your company undertakes before purchasing equipment, there is no guarantee that they will have enough skills on the choice of the optimal and at the same time scalable configuration. It is difficult for customers to build optimal IT infrastructures, it takes a long time to find the right solution in terms of storage systems, in terms of network equipment, in terms of computing resources, through trial and error to build a cluster configuration, etc.
In actual fact, the customer wants to buy not the hardware and software, but the solution to their problems. And if the customer is going to purchase Oracle software, then the choice of the most efficient hardware configuration for Oracle and solutions based on Oracle should also be trusted to Oracle.
Your server room BEFORE and AFTER the appearance of (oracle) engineered systems .
How are (oracle) engineered systems being developed? Hardware and software are designed, tested and debugged together. And if you know which applications will work on which equipment, then you can achieve the highest performance, with less chance of "surprises" from the incompatibility of components, and, of course, it becomes easier to provide support. Customers do not have to select and optimize components - servers, disks, processors, network components, memory, etc. Install and configure software, test the performance of each server, do their subsequent updates, etc. also not necessary. Significantly simplified maintenance of IT infrastructure.
Today, all Oracle software and hardware systems are certified to work with SAP applications and are ready for cloud computing, for example, for organizing a private cloud - and if we are talking about implementing solutions on a software and hardware platform for SAP applications, then most likely private cloud.
Oracle offers a complete solution stack, starting with operating system virtualization hardware and a database layer for SAP applications built on best practices from Oracle. For three decades of Oracle global practice, a large knowledge base has been accumulated, in which all the problems that customers may have are consolidated. After analyzing this huge knowledge base, Oracle has developed a ready-made, balanced, pre-configured, configured hardware and software solution that is serviceable for hosting databases on an Oracle platform.
Oracle Exadata complexes are designed to organize Oracle database services. Oracle Exalogic - machine for application servers, including Oracle Applications, SAP ERP and others. Oracle Database Appliance complexes are designed to deploy Oracle database services along with an application — for example, with the central instance of SAP ERP. Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance allows you to deploy all the necessary services, this software and hardware complex is certified, including by SAP. Next, I will focus on the Oracle Exadata solution for SAP.
Finally, the Oracle SuperCluster M6-32 is built on the SPARC platform, and this is one of the most powerful machines on the market today — 32 processors, 384 cores, 3072 threads; 140 thousand SAP users, the official test result is 793 930 SAPS. Details about Oracle SuperCluster - in the next article.
Oracle exadata
Oracle Exadata Oracle Exadata Eights Rack is a minor configuration solution. It includes two compute modules on the Intel X86 platform, two database servers. Most customers use 10 or 16 GB of classic Fiber Channel servers for switching storage systems and classic Fiber Channel servers, but this solution is fraught with serious scaling response delays, so Oracle uses a 40 GB high-speed InfiniBand network for switching. Infiniband has minimal latency and provides minimal response time with a large number of users.
The storage system used by Oracle Exadata is called Exadata Storage Server, and is significantly different from the classic solutions. Briefly, the Exadata Storage Server feature is that the system “understands” what works with the Oracle database, optimizes the transfer of blocks from the storage system level to the database level, and ensures that part of database operations, including SQL queries, are performed at the storage systems. Thus, Exadata Storage Server provides a reduction in traffic from the storage system to the database level, and provides the highest overall system performance.
Exadata Storage Server uses the X4-2 server, which has two 6-core processors, 96 GB of memory, a PCI Flash Card for I / O acceleration, and 1.2 Tbyte or 4 TB hard drives for long-term data storage.
Exadata Database Server has two 12-core processors, the amount of RAM is 256 or 512 GB. All interfaces: both network and InfiniBand are duplicated.
The Oracle Exadata Quarter, Oracle Exadata Half and Oracle Exadata Full Rack are higher configurations of the Oracle Exadata Database Machine than the Oracle Exadata Eighth. At the initial stage, the client can purchase Eighth or Quarter, and then, as necessary, scale the configuration to any more powerful standard as needed, without having to think about network capacities, server access to the storage system, etc., all this is decided in advance , the client only needs a classic Ethernet network.
In Russia, the most popular solution is the Oracle Exadata Quarter, it includes two database servers (48 cores in total), 512 GB RAM or 1 TB, duplicated by InfiniBand, three storage systems, 9.6 TB PCI Flash Cash, and file storage databases with a usable capacity from 19 TB (fast disks) to 63 TB (high capacity disks), taking into account duplication, reorganization of RAID groups, etc.
Performance
Performance is something for which everything was started, so it deserves a separate discussion.
Once again we will stop on Oracle Exadata Quarter. Let's imagine that we have only regular disks and no SSD disks and PCI Flash Cash. In this case, 50 thousand input-output operations is a full cabinet with disks. PCI Flash Cash provides 570 thousand read operations and 420 thousand write operations per second.
How is this achieved? The fact is that modern databases of SAP applications, as a rule, do not exceed 15 TB by volume. Such a database almost completely fits into the fast cache. But even if the database occupies 50 TB, then almost all of its working part falls into the PCI Flash Cash because the average system updates less than 10% of the data, and a high-loaded one, as a rule, does not exceed 20% of the data.
These are the most general information about Oracle Exadata that I wanted to share with you. In the next article, we’ll take a closer look at how Exadata works, talk about the maintenance and technical support of Exadata, tell you a little more about the Oracle SuperCluster and focus on the actual implementations of the system.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/263633/
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