Configuring Networks, Pools, and Shares

The following sections summarize best practices for optimizing ZFS Storage Appliance network, storage pool, and share configurations to support backup and restore processing.

Network Configuration

This section describes how to configure the IP network multipathing (IPMP) groups, and how to configure routing in the ZFS Storage Appliance.

Note: If you used the Oracle Exadata Backup Configuration Utility, configure the network as described in this section. For details, review the Best Practices white paper.

For customers seeking additional IB connectivity, more IB HCAs can be installed and configured. For details, see the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Installation Guide.

The principles in this section can be applied to a 10Gb Ethernet implementation by applying the network configuration to the ixgbe interfaces instead of the ibp interfaces. The 10Gb Ethernet implementation may be configured as active/active IPMP. If the ZFS Storage Appliance is on a different subnet than the Oracle Exadata, it may be necessary to create static routes from the ZFS Storage Appliance to the Oracle Exadata. Consult with your network administrator for details.

Basic Network Configuration

1. Ensure that the ZFS Storage Appliance is connected to the Oracle Exadata.
2. Configure ibp0, ibp1, ibp2, and ibp3 with address 0.0.0.0/8 (necessary for IPMP), connected mode, and partition key ffff. To identify the partition key used by the Oracle Exadata system, run the following command as the root user:<br/># cat /sys/class/net/ib0/pkey
3. Configure the active/standby IPMP group over ibd0 and ibd3, with ibd0 active and ibd3 standby.
4. Configure the active/standby IPMP group over ibd1 and ibd2, with ibd2 active and ibd1 standby.
5. Enable adaptive routing to ensure traffic is load balanced appropriately when multiple IP addresses on the same subnet are owned by the same head. This occurs after a cluster failover.

Pool Configuration

This section describes design considerations to determine the most appropriate pool configuration for the ZFS Storage Appliance for Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) backup and restore operations based on data protection and performance requirements.

Note: If you used the Oracle Exadata Backup Configuration Utility, configure the pool as described in this section. For details, review the Best Practices white paper.

The system planner should consider pool protection based on the following guidelines:

• Use parity-based protection for general-purpose and capacity-optimized systems:

• * RAID-Z for protection from single-drive failure on systems subject to random workloads.

• * RAID-Z2 for protection from two-drive failure on systems with streaming workloads only.

• Use mirroring for high-performance with incrementally applied backup.

• Configure pools based on performance requirements:

• * Configure a single pool for management-optimized systems.

• * Configure two pools for performance-optimized systems. Two-pool systems should be configured by using half the drives from each tray.

• Configure log device protection:

• * Stripe log devices for RAID-Z and mirrored pool configurations.

• * Mirror log devices for RAID-Z2 pool configurations.

Note: If you used the Oracle Exadata Backup Configuration Utility, proceed to the next topic: Configuring Oracle Exadata for a Sun ZFS Storage Appliance.

Share Configuration

The default options for ZFS Storage Appliance shares provide a good starting point for general-purpose workloads. ZFS Storage Appliance shares can be optimized for Oracle RMAN backup and restore operations as follows:

• Create a project to store all shares related to backup and recovery of a single database. For a two-pool implementation, create two projects; one for each pool.

• Configure the shares supporting Oracle RMAN backup and restore workloads with the following values:

• * Database record size (recordsize): 128kB

• * Synchronous write bias (logbias): Throughput (for processing backup sets and image copies) or Latency (for incrementally applied backups)

• * Cache device usage (secondary cache): None (for backup sets) or All (when supporting incrementally applied backups or database clone operations)

• * Data compression (compression): Off for performance-optimized systems, LZJB or gzip-2 for capacity-optimized systems

• * Number of shares per pool: 1 for management-optimized systems, 2 or 4 for performance-optimized systems

Additional share configuration options, such as higher-level gzip compression or replication, can be applied to shares used to support Oracle Exadata backup and restore, as customer requirements mandate.

Customers implementing additional ZFS Storage Appliance data services should consider implementation-specific testing to verify the implications of deviations from the practices described earlier.