IDS Forum

RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....

Posted By: jim-cramer@uiowa.edu
Date: Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 11:15 a.m.

In Response To: RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces on ID (Wyza, Jonathon)

Jonathon,

Thank you very much for the fast response and the
below info.

At 2 pm I had to do battle with the Sys Admins here
and your information, as well as what Art has been
saying all last week (and previous to that) about
Raw db chunks and issues, helped me argue my
case.

As far as what I said and was worried about in issue (1)
goes, either I misunderstand what was rattled off
to me this morning in a hurry about that or they have
changed their tune.

After talking to them, I was pretty sure that the admins,
or perhaps just one of them, were claiming that there
could be issues with the ESX server management/system software/
utilities affecting the raw db chunks in the VMs that
my Informix instances are in. You are right, that makes
0 sense. I thought so too at the time, but perhaps
I misunderstood. Because now they are saying that
their concern is that Linux system management stuff,
such as YAST, within the VMs that my Informix instances
are in could mess with my raw logical volumes used
as Informix chunks. They said that they have to configure
some things inside the VMs so that they do not do that.

I have no Linux Sys Admin experience, just HP-UX.
If you are aware of anything that is part of Linux
that might be a consideration when I use raw logical
volumes, please let me know if you get a chance.

Thanks again for your help!

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:ids-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Wyza,
Jonathon
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 2:23 PM
To: ids@iiug.org
Subject: RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o.... [20663]

1) That makes 0 sense. Although you will be using raw spaces, the drives
themselves are allocated by the host for the client to use in any way it
sees
fit, just have them allocate the space on drive creation instead of when it
needs it (just so you have sequential sectors on the discs). Raw spaces will

work fine in a virtual environment.
2) Backing it up using their utility is silly. Use ontap or onbar.
3) Little bit? try at least 20% increase. And what sys admin overhead are
they
talking about?
4) JFS is exactly why you DON"T want cooked files. look at the thread about
performance issue with ZFS on this board just this week to see a nice long
explanation by Art about this.

Jonathon Wyza
CX & CBORD System Administrator
CX Programmer/Analyst
Administrative Computing
Bethel College
(574)-257-3381
AIM: Iamwyza
jonathon.wyza@bethelcollege.edu
==============================
SLES 11x64 & IDS 11.50.FC6

“Don’t document the problem, fix it.”
– Atli Björgvin Oddsson

________________________________________
From: ids-bounces@iiug.org [ids-bounces@iiug.org] on behalf of Jim Cramer
[jim-cramer@uiowa.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 3:14 PM
To: ids@iiug.org
Subject: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces on ID.... [20662]

HELP!

Here is another angle to the recent questions, and explanations
by Art, et. al, regarding using RAW instead of COOKED dbspaces
on IDS 11.5 running on Linux.

For reasons cited by Art and the others, I (the DBA) wish to use
RAW dbspaces when I move my instances to Linux (SUSE 11 SLES)
Virtual Machines on an ESX Server running VMWare.

But my Sys Admins here are refusing to allow RAW spaces and citing
all kinds of vague, generalized reasons why, such as:

1) the "host administration utilities" will not fly right
with Raw Spaces but will not be specific about what would
go wrong. In general, my sense is that they feel that
the Management Console and Tools for the ESX host might
see the Raw Dbspace and, because it does not contain not a formatted
filesystem, allocate it to something on the box.

2) using raw space will not allow the VMs containing the IDS
dbspaces to be backed up or fit into their backup strategy
and backup utility.

They cannot seem to understand that a normal backup utility
would not know how to deal with the dbspaces even if they
were Cooked.

3) that the "little bit" of performance that they claim I might
get with Raw will not pay back for the increased Sys Admin
overhead.

4) that they will use a Journaled File System (along with Cooked
dbspaces) because it is more robust, fault-tolerant, comes
back up quicker after a crash, etc.

Can anybody provide me with any concrete information/experience
that is related to the above points, particularly (1) .

Does anyone know if raw dbspaces can cause problems in a Virtual
Machine on a VMWare ESX Server.

If you have some info and have time to send it soon, that would
be appreciated because I am about to do battle over this with
our Sys Admins.

Thanks much in advance,

Jim Cramer
Database Administrator and
Applications Developer III
University of Iowa
College of Engineering
Engineering Computer Systems Support
1256 SC
Iowa City, Iowa 52245
(319)-335-5757
jim-cramer@uiowa.edu
jcramer@engineering.uiowa.edu
http://css.engineering.uiowa.edu
http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu
http://www.uiowa.edu

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Messages In This Thread

• Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces on IDS 11
  Jim Cramer -- Tuesday, 27 July 2010, at 3:14 p.m.
  • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces on ID
    Wyza, Jonathon -- Tuesday, 27 July 2010, at 3:22 p.m.
    • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
      jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 11:15 a.m.
      • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
        Wyza, Jonathon -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 11:20 a.m.
        • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
          jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 11:48 a.m.
        • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
          jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Thursday, 29 July 2010, at 9:55 a.m.
          • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
            Wyza, Jonathon -- Thursday, 29 July 2010, at 10:34 a.m.
            • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
              jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Thursday, 29 July 2010, at 10:56 a.m.
  • Re: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces on ID
    Alexandre Marini -- Tuesday, 27 July 2010, at 3:30 p.m.
    • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
      jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 11:15 a.m.
  • Re: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces on ID
    Art Kagel -- Tuesday, 27 July 2010, at 5:59 p.m.
    • Re: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
      Fernando Nunes -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 4:18 a.m.
      • Re: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
        Art Kagel -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 8:48 a.m.
        • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
          jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 11:40 a.m.
          • Re: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
            Art Kagel -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 5:11 p.m.
      • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces o....
        jim-cramer@uiowa.edu -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 11:31 a.m.
  • RE: Are there issues when using RAW dbspaces on ID
    Andrew Lennard -- Wednesday, 28 July 2010, at 12:19 p.m.

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